Cause and Effect
by mariu100
Summary: Self-doubt, sleep-deprived nights with baby and a very bad day for both Brennan and Booth lead to a perfect storm of regretted words and major decisions. A continuation of sorts to "The Inner Life."
1. Chapter 1

Contemplating the weary image in the mirror with a mixture of mild curiosity and dread, Temperance Brennan finished putting the damp mess that was currently her hair into a ponytail. At least she had showered; her biggest accomplishment of the day so far, and no small feat considering there had been days in the past few weeks when even that simple task had gone unperformed. Her sweats were beginning to look entirely too baggy on her, but she didn't possess the drive to look through her pre-pregnancy clothes for suitable replacements. They probably wouldn't fit yet, anyway. The C-section had left her abdomen slightly distended and very sore and anything too tight was not acceptable. In the scheme of things, her bedraggled looks were the least of her worries-a quick look around their dwelling would confirm that.

Never one too vain, she had always been careful with how she was perceived regardless because she understood the importance of first impressions in the pecking order of society. But her society these days was very small, consisting primarily of an infant who presumably couldn't be bothered with the looks of the person feeding her and of her mate, whose own exhaustion hopefully made for a less discerning eye. With the occasional visitor she still took the time and effort to appear the meticulous, confident Dr. Brennan of old, but alone with the baby she allowed this new flummoxed, bewildered person to come out. And today, that particular person was coming out with a vengeance.

Colic. Funny how a term that appeared to be so neutral on the surface completely failed to capture the harsh nature of the event. No wonder the word evoked terror in the eyes of newly-minted parents. Crying that went on without seeming reason or end and having a stubborn predilection for making nighttime appearances. She was doing everything she could to decipher and treat the condition, using all the means at her impressive disposal. But despite the books, the internet, the weekly pediatric appointments and the well-intentioned advice from friends, the crying continued, leaving her secretly wondering whether their little girl's unhappiness stemmed in part from her mother's inability to bond with her in a proper way. And beyond all that was logical or explainable, only one thing more often than not quieted their distressed child: Booth. Almost without fail, when she had tried everything available to her, her partner in procreation descended on the scene like the proverbial knight in shining armor that Angela so happily equated him with and with his off-key voice and the sometimes ridiculous gyrations of his body, managed to soothe their distressed daughter back to sleep. While she appreciated the results, how they were accomplished did nothing for her self-confidence. She could lord over a lab, dazzle the most accomplished in her field, and yet a barely six-week old baby had her on her knees leaving her feeling completely deficient. No matter how much she observed, how much she tried to absorb, Booth's wordless skills continued to elude her. He was a veritable Tarzan, that legendary master of beasts featured in those Edgar Rice Burroughs books she had so enjoyed as a child. There was some sort of power there she couldn't understand or harness and it was a concession to her defeated state that she was willing to attribute what he was doing to magic.

Booth as Tarzan-an amusing yet powerful vision of him, particularly if one went into the visuals a bit. But amusement was in short supply this morning and she went into the kitchen without a single lift to her spirits. Better to eat while baby was asleep; a mid-morning nap wasn't something to be wasted, even if it involved Booth in a loincloth.

On her way there she surveyed their home, once reasonably tidy but now completely overrun by "stuff". Ambiguous terminology at best to be certain, but descriptive enough. Strange bouncing things, booties, blankets, toys, clothes in desperate need of hanging, partly opened presents-and paperwork everywhere. Medical bills, junk mail, newspapers, work materials. Her head hurt just looking at the chaos; when she felt a little stronger she would have to sort through things. Booth kept offering to organize but she declined time and time again, afraid something important might get lost-he really wasn't that detail-oriented. It was the same reason she didn't want a housekeeper or a babysitter's help even though Booth had strenuously suggested it upon her release from the hospital. At least that was the reason she liked to give him. In truth, getting any kind of outside assistance was tantamount to a moral defeat of sorts in her eyes, an admission that she couldn't even succeed at the menial task of housekeeping.

Pouring out a bowl of cereal, she quickly walked back into the living room with a sudden surge of panic; the yellow notepad left on the kitchen counter last night was no longer there. Had she ambled off with it and put it somewhere else, in one of those states of catatonia she was beginning to be more and more familiar with? There had been a rash and barely remembered promise to her editor of a new chapter by the end of this week, and it was already Thursday. If she transcribed the notes onto the computer and cleaned them up she just might be able to get something out in time. Probably not her best, but the best she currently had to offer.

Haphazardly searching the contents of the coffee table, she shoved a pile of magazines aside only to have the whole thing abruptly hit the floor, spreading its glossy covers far and wide. Men in hockey masks, men in helmets, men on bicycles and the completely incongruous woman in the barest of bikinis. Booth's sports magazines, months worth now ranging far and wide across the carpet along with some scientific journals of her own.

She knelt down gingerly and began picking them up, looking carefully through them this time to make sure her notes hadn't been inadvertently trapped between them. She needed those notes. Why hadn't she just typed them onto her computer to begin with? The answer was easy-it was yet another of many recent accomodations to baby's existence, the laptop being hard to maneuver with only one free hand.

Baby; she mused about the absurd moniker. It was how they currently referred to their offspring, a humorous, completely redundant iteration of everything that was patently obvious about her. Like so often in the past, she and Booth had crafted a term for something they shared that was for their use alone-their own little code. They did that often, and even more of late. On some days it still shocked her to see how easily their lives had intertwined, making a single design of what were such disparate elements. And on other days, it scared her how much she was beginning to need…something. She could identify that same exact 'something' in his eyes. Desire, wanting, dependence and…love. So this is what it was like, an aching that became almost unbearable when they spent any significant period of time apart, that made the thought of a permanent break in their bond an unacceptable option. She realized this last part when Booth came close to dying right in front of her a few weeks before the birth; it was the discovery of this one missing piece of information about herself that finally led her to agree to legally tie their separate identities into one.

And she still wanted to be with him in that way; it's just that since their first night together things had happened at such reckless, breakneck speed that she felt that somewhere along the way an important part of her must have been left behind, the part that usually guaranteed the appropriateness of her choices. But if she had thought things were descending into the unknowable on the morning after they first slept together and later, when she found out she was pregnant in that hospital bathroom, well…just look at her life now.

So far she was coping, but had come very, very close to not. And the thing that worried her the most? She could see him drifting closer and closer to her, allowing himself to give in to the domesticity of their new life, implicitly trusting in her ability to create a home for and with him-a permanent, immutable home. It was there every time he looked at her, his expressive brown eyes shining with undisguised adoration and ever growing hope. She was loath to admit that his faith in her was terrifying and possibly misplaced, and she wondered for the millionth time whether despite her many aptitudes, she could really live up to all those expectations. Just as she continued to silently wonder about the wisdom of getting married. It had been a willing choice-and yes she had sort of asked, just like he had so irritatingly predicted many months ago-but sometimes she still doubted she had what it took to carry through on the implications of that promise.

What was wrong with her? Even Angela, the freest, most unconventional of spirits amongst all of her acquaintances had cheerfully defected to the matrimonial state with little by way of trouble or complaint. It was true that faltering steps were taken by her and Hodgins on the way there, but in the final count Angela had embraced monogamy, its attendant wedding ring _and_ a baby, adjusting almost seamlessly to her change in circumstance. So where did that leave her? Alone in a world where almost everyone she knew thought nothing about embarking on joint ventures of the heart for all eternity, as much as that goal was ever really achievable.

_Why are you hanging around that weirdo, Callie? People are going to start picking on you too._ Words whispered by a tormentor to someone she thought was a friend, until that friend too began keeping her distance. Because Temperance had always been a strange girl, different, and on some emotional level that she had not valued sufficiently until recently, perhaps even inadequate, despite Booth's differing opinion. She only wished she could see herself through his eyes; maybe then she could find the inspiration to match that vision. Because there was no possible way she could really be the way he perceived her to be-just look at her current failures with baby and household. She only hoped that she could change sufficiently before he too figured it out. _He sees the truth of you, and he's dazzled by that truth._ It just wasn't possible, and to this day she refused to believe it.

With no success at hand in finding her notes, she continued searching through the slick pile when without warning their landline phone rang, filling the house with its seldom-heard shrill sound. Loud enough here in the living room, but more worrisome because of its proximity to their sleeping daughter, in their bedroom. She got up as quickly as she could, wincing a little from the effort. It was too late; as if on cue she heard the baby's cries, easily as loud as anything coming out of the cordless phone.

She walked towards the infant's bedroom, clicking the receiver and answering "Dr. Temperance Brennan" before discovering Daisy's maddeningly cheerful voice at the other end; she should have known better than to ignore the caller id. Then again, Daisy was nothing but perseverant and her calls would hardly stop coming merely because they weren't picked up-just ask her partner about amorous moments gone awry due to Ms. Wick's tenacity. If Daisy only knew how many times Booth had paired her name with an epithet…but no, it was unlikely that even this information would have deterred her assistant.

"Doctor Brennan, how are you?" the young woman chirped happily. She withheld a reply, knowing perfectly well that the intern would provide her own answer. "Oh, I'm sure you're tired, and lonely and bored and…"

"Ms. Wick, to the point, please."

"I'm sorry. It's just I can't even imagine what it's like being you right now; it must be such a challenge. I don't know what _I_ would do stuck in the house and far from the social and intellectual companionship I'm so comfortable with…"

"Ms Wick," she replied with more severity as she tried to handle the phone and the baby.

"Right. Sorry. Oh Dr. Brennan; I hate to remind you, but Dr. Saroyan needs the comments to the conclusions I emailed you earlier this week. I mean, I'm pretty confident about my results, but you know Doctor Saroyan; she's nothing if not thorough."

Her heart immediately sank at the words, and even knowing that this sensation was the result of a temporary drop in blood pressure, part of the body's survival mechanism during times of stress, didn't make the feeling any more agreeable. How could she have forgotten? The trial was in two weeks and they needed to present the findings about the Ana Garcia murder to the prosecutors by the end of the week, which for her meant today since her comments would have to be reviewed and certified by Cam before being turned in. She vaguely recalled looking at the email and even printing out Daisy's analysis, but her involvement with the materials had gone no further than this. Their daughter had woken up hungry and the report and its contents had been almost immediately relegated to some dim corner of her mind in the wake of the baby's irritable mood. It would take hours to verify the findings thoroughly, hours which she no longer had at her disposal. And for the first time in memory, she found herself apologizing about a professional matter. It was awkward and humiliating, but the only thing to do.

"I'm very sorry, Ms. Wick. I have the report, but I confess I forgot about the deadline. I'll do my best to review it this morning and I will get back to you and Doctor Saroyan as soon as I can."

Daisy was uncharacteristically dumbstruck on hearing the news, a fact that did little by way of easing her own discomfort. "Oh…yes, of course, quite understandable when progeny arrives", the intern managed to stutter out. "Well, as soon as you can, Doctor Brennan. I don't mean to pressure you. Take your time-except that you know we need it today, right?" she added in a girlish, pleading tone. "Oooh, is that the baby I hear? Awwww, how cute-and loud. I never thought about having children before, but seeing as you are my mentor and role model and you've decided to bring a little person into the world, I may have to reconsider. It seems quite the rage these days in the lab. And Lance is _so_ attractive, only think of the highly intelligent, great-looking kids we're bound to have together. When you think about it, we actually _owe_ it to the world. You really need to bring her by the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan. Oops, I forgot; Doctor Saroyan doesn't like that. But Ms. Montenegro does it anyway, so I'm sure you can…"

"Goodbye Ms. Wick. I will email you my results in the next few hours."

She hung up without any further comment, perfectly aware that she was being rude. And as she changed their little girl, the pervasive feeling of being caught in the center of a hurricane came back in full force as countless undone chores swirled around her in a disordered, and dangerous, mass. The baby came first of course; even if that hadn't been her first priority, her loud complaints about being left alone and unfed would have made rational thought almost impossible. And she enjoyed being with their daughter-she loved her, one of the few things she was still certain about-it's just that she enjoyed doing her work as well. Prioritizing while putting her offspring first; what seemed like an easily accomplishable mission only six weeks ago was turning out to be a most unmanageable task. She was simply not accustomed to letting work, or anything else that depended on her skills for that matter, come in second place. Lately though, there just didn't seem to be enough of her to go around and she feared that one of these days she would be responsible for failing people who relied on her in a major way. Possibly as soon as today.

Feeding the baby, now utterly content and looking at her with eyes that she recognized as her own, she wondered just how she was supposed to keep everyone happy. The publisher, their child, the lab and foremost on her mind these days, her boyfriend. Such a ridiculous term, one that made her alternately smile and grimace. It was the way others referred to him when speaking of their relationship and she had ended up accepting it, partly because nothing better came to mind. "Lover" had an illicit, overly-dramatic ring to it she wasn't particularly excited about and which Booth hated, "partner" seemed too tied to work-although she didn't mind this one as much-while "significant other" was entirely too indeterminate a label for her taste. Truly, there were no good options, so boyfriend and its slightly juvenile connotation would have to do for now until a new, even more alien term took its place: husband. And he was on her mind a lot, because she had experienced little of what others would have called "quality time" with him lately. First it had been his gun-shot wound and then her pregnancy discomfort and complicated delivery. The end result? They hadn't slept together in more than two months, with at least a couple of more weeks to go; an eternity for two people who hadn't shared that much time together as a couple. Without a doubt, she was definitely starting to become more than a bit miffed at the loss of their "quality time."

No sexual intercourse for at least eight weeks following that disastrous labor; when they both received the instructions from her doctor she had breathed a little sigh of relief, because her near-brush with death had left her drained and irrefutably sore and most definitely not in the mood for any. But in the last few days being held or merely touched by him, however intimately, didn't seem nearly enough. Their relationship, still so new, needed more by way of actual sex to develop. Lots more. It was a connection her mind and heart were ready for even if her body wasn't.

Truly, when one thought about it was only sex and she shouldn't be missing it so much-there had been plenty of dry spells in her life before-except that she had figured out early on that somehow with Booth it really wasn't ever _just _sex. Yes, there were times when it was primarily about recreation and athleticism and even a little playful competition between them, about release and endorphins, but there were other times with him when she could literally feel all personal borders dissolving into the haze of powerful, addictive embraces that in their wake left her feeling both ecstatically joyful and deeply concerned. Sometimes, after he loved her, after they loved each other and long after he had fallen asleep, his arms often still possessively around her, she would stay awake physically and mentally overwhelmed, with everything that she was and had ever been seemingly well on its way to melding with him into an amorphous, undefinable 'us.' In hindsight, maybe there was something to his idea about lovers breaking the laws of physics.

She looked down at her engagement ring, the one that signified to her equal parts love and surrender. Us; Temperance Brennan hadn't belonged to such an all-encompassing unit since her family had vanished into thin air right before that empty Christmas morning. Those memories were buried six feet deep now, and hurt sufficiently that she wanted them left there. Despite her recent change of heart, she wasn't sure she could be part of an us again, not in the solid, unchanging way that Booth saw it. But there was still time to weigh her options before raising the alarm, and maybe things would get better once the baby slept through the night like Angela kept telling her.

Refusing to let her day stall any longer on these currently irresolvable issues, she headed to the laptop with their little girl at hand prepared to do what she could about the forensic report. As to the misplaced chapter? That was yet one more apology in the making, one that would require a little more courage than she had at the moment. In the shadow of such an inauspicious start to the morning the soggy cereal was left completely forgotten on the coffee table, even as she mentally committed to being more attentive to things in the future. It was promising to be a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

The key was barely in the ignition but Sweets had already yanked on his seat belt and strapped himself into the SUV's passenger side, giving the buckle a small tug in the process to make sure it had actually gone where it was supposed to go. Forget about any possible loss of hipness involved; driving shotgun with Booth was still something of a novelty and if he had to be honest, his partner's driving habits continued to make him uneasy-and queasy. That large, shatter-prone expanse of glass staring back at him just wasn't as appealing up close as it had been from the back seat. "Okay Sweets, in these matters, it's better to say as little as possible. You get that?" With the routine early morning meeting with Cam at the Jeffersonian finished, it was back to the pressing business at hand.

"Yeah, sure" Sweets answered mechanically, his mind busy maneuvering around the disadvantages of the new seating arrangement. "I just personally think it would be best to lay out all the facts on the table; it was clearly a justified shooting."

"You've never dealt with these Internal Affairs people before, have you?"

"No, but I have to admit I'm feeling pretty pumped about it. It's, like, going to be a battle of wills and wit, and not to brag, but I'm pretty darned good at those." He paused, frowning. "Although maybe I'm a feeling just a little nervous about it too."

"Good-you should be. This isn't a game of Dungeons and Dragons, Sweets." For what seemed like the tenth time this morning Booth fixed his eyes on his distracted partner, practically begging him to grasp the seriousness of what was coming. Perhaps it would be best, Sweets thought apprehensively, if he concentrated on the road instead. "Agent Booth!" the younger man yelped, pointing to a car that had unexpectedly stopped and double parked in front of them. Booth swerved around abruptly and Sweets felt compelled to give his seat belt another discreet tug-still holding.

"These people aren't out for facts, they're out for blood" Booth continued severely, slightly irritated now by all the back seat driving he'd been subjected to of late. Bones seldom criticized the way he drove, and as much as he liked Sweets, it made him miss her being out in the field with him even more. As if he needed one more reason.

"They want one person to blame, the scapegoat, so the rest of them can come out smelling great. Don't ever be fooled into thinking that they're helping you, you understand? Look, they're going to try to divide us, get us to turn on each other. Just avoid the temptation to blab on and on in that shrinky way of yours and keep your mouth closed."

The vehemence in Booth's tone caught Sweets by surprise, finally snapping him out of the self-preservation mode he'd been in since hopping into the car. "Sure Booth, I can do that. In fact, last night Daisy was helping me to try out some interrogation techniques I came up with. I think I passed the 'cool and collected' test very well; Daisy thought it was hot," he added with a smile and slight shake of the head.

"_So_ glad to hear that."

"Besides, give me a little credit here. I'm a trained psychologist with multiple degrees and almost certainly way smarter than this Carter guy who's the lead investigator. I think I can handle it."

"On paper, maybe. But don't get overconfident." Booth's eyes left the road again. He knew that Sweets was about to get a painful lesson in how government bureaucrats worked and the ugly things they were willing to do to their own in order to get ahead, and there was no telling how he'd hold up under the strain. Once more he was left wishing that Sweets hadn't been called into the meeting; it was bad enough keeping track of his own mouth, let alone someone else's. "You may be a genius, but Doug Carter is dangerous. What he lacks in intelligence he makes up by playing dirty. He loves to trip you up, get you to fall on your own sword. He wants you to do his work for him, and he often gets just that. I've dealt with him before and I'm telling you this guy's a real menace, no matter how harmless he seems on a first meeting."

"Really Booth, you don't have to worry about me. I think I've got it covered. No shrinky stuff, I promise. And you're innocent; I've never known you to make a mistake of that nature. Besides, won't Assistant Director Hacker be there too? He'll stand up for you, won't he?"

Booth laughed dismissively. "Are you kidding? Hacker's in it mainly for himself. He's not a bad person, but if you're not making him look good then you better get out of his way. He's not sticking his neck out for anyone unless he knows he's coming out looking like a winner."

With a few more white-knuckle moments to show for itself, Sweets' nerve-jarring ride came to an uneventful end when Booth made a sharp turn into his assigned Hoover parking spot. He sighed with relief; maybe all this talk of danger and entrapment was getting to him, but some of his earlier bravado was starting to disappear along with what little appetite he had left after the stressful trip. As an antidote to the butterflies building up in his stomach, he reminded himself that he was practically _the_ expert on psychological warfare and under-handed interview strategies for the FBI. Besides, he and Daisy had worked hard to get him prepared for this morning's debriefing-at least right up to the point they had decided to take the role-playing one step further. In their defense, the distraction had proven irresistible.

The two men strolled side by side into the building in silence, with Booth mentally going over every single aspect of the events from two days ago and Sweets being oddly reminded of the one and only time he had visited the principal's office for a presumed offense. The anticipation had been worse than the actual reprimand, and he was hoping today's session with Internal Affairs would be a repeat of that grade-school experience. For Booth though, there could be no such delusion-he'd been through this before, and the fact that Carter was involved, well….it added a whole new dimension to his problems. As the time of their appointment neared he became more and more conscious of the unpleasantness lying just ahead, stopping short of the conference room door trying to find some focus. The enemy waiting inside for him would like nothing more than to spot a weakness and loss of concentration, not to mention self-control, could lead to precisely that. He had to keep treating this like any other routine post-incident interview; turning it into anything more could only make matters worse.

Sweets caught his hesitation. "Booth..." he began, touching the other man's arm as he tried to come up with some words of support. Unable to think of any that didn't sound trite or overly "shrinky," he gave up. The whole situation was making him very uncomfortable; his new role in his work relationship with Booth was still pretty vague and he hadn't been able to figure out just yet what was expected of him under the circumstances, especially given the fact that his embattled colleague might be getting chastised right in front of him. Dr. Brennan, he was sure, would have known what to say. In hindsight, maybe he should have practiced with Daisy a bit more.

They finally walked into the utilitarian conference room and Booth's eyes immediately fell on the person who Sweets surmised could only be Douglas Carter. Slightly younger than Booth, shorter but in reasonably good shape, his ramrod stance and clearly false smile gave him an air of self-importance and disdain at odds with his somewhat innocent, juvenile-looking features. Booth knew that body language very well and he felt immediate revulsion. He hated that bastard, not only for his own brushes with him in the past, but for the pain and humiliation he had put other agents through. Not all of them had managed to escape as unscathed as he had, he reminded himself sourly.

"So nice to see you, Agent Booth, Dr. Sweets," Hacker began in the mildest of tones. "I'm sure Agent Booth that you're familiar with Agent Douglas Carter from Internal Affairs; and I'm assuming, Dr. Sweets, that Booth has filled you in so we should just get going, don't you think?" In the hopes of setting a civilized tone for the meeting Sweets held out his hand and tried introducing himself to Carter, but the man rebuffed his greeting and barely gave him a glance. Definitely _not_ a good beginning.

"Yes" Carter said coolly, "Agent Booth and I go way back, don't we, Seeley?" The attempt at familiarity was met with stalwart silence. "So, I see we're not feeling particularly friendly today-what's new, huh? Okay, let's do this, then. No need to drag it out."

Picking his spot at the table, Hacker sat down and the other men followed, with Sweets dutifully sitting by Booth on one side and Hacker and Carter on the other in the clearest sign yet that the meeting would be anything but friendly. "Well gentlemen" Hacker said in a light tone that caught Sweets off guard, "it appears that we have a messy little problem on our hands. There's a rather sensitive and influential portion of the population which feels that Agent Booth used excessive force when he shot that fifteen year old on Tuesday. Now, I've known Agent Booth for many years and I have full confidence in his abilities, but one can't be too careful these days. If this isn't handled with the utmost care, it could really embarrass some people higher up." He rolled his eyes for emphasis while dramatically pointing a finger at the ceiling. "And that's where Agent Carter comes in. He's going to help us sort things out, get our stories straight, and do any PR smoothing that needs to be done."

"There's no story to get straight. The facts are the facts" Booth countered, his voice openly belligerent as he looked Carter in the eye. About to add something else, he stopped himself; this was precisely what he wanted to avoid, letting that arrogant pencil-pusher get the upper hand by giving him too much to work with right off the bat. He forced himself to relax back into his chair and waited for Carter to make the next move. The interviewer, however, remained oddly quiet, choosing instead to nod condescendingly in a manner that Sweets quickly determined was meant to disorient the opponent with the possibility that he had some kind of knowledge that others were lacking. So far, the man was showing himself to be painfully predictable and amateurish. Perhaps this wouldn't turn out to be so bad, after all.

After letting a minute go by Carter leaned slightly across the table with folded hands, all the while fixing Booth with a clinical stare. "Okay Booth, since you want things blunt, let's cut right to the chase then. In your written account about Tuesday's events you state that you and Dr. Sweets-oh, it's Agent now, isn't it?- were going to interrogate a man by the name of Ted Jones at his apartment about a recent string of armed bank robberies. You opened his door-we won't get into the details of _how_-and figured he might have left the scene through the back window. Agent Sweets went looking for him through the fire escape, you went out the front door and down the stairs when you saw a man running down the hallway. It's nighttime, it's dark. You claim he pulled out a gun, you pulled out yours, you shot this young man, who by the way was _not_ Ted Jones, he fell. Did I get the facts as you saw them right?"

"I warned him, I told him I was an FBI agent, he turned around and reached into his jacket and I saw the gun."

"Then what?"

"It's all in my statement-I've said it all before. Several people came out of an adjacent apartment and rushed up to the suspect before I had a chance to secure the scene. I told them to back off, but I can't be sure that one of them didn't pick up the weapon before they stepped away."

"And then Agent Sweets came."

"Yes; I called the paramedics and when we didn't find the gun on the kid we rounded up the gawkers, but we didn't find it. Like I said, I can't be sure someone didn't take it."

"I see. Well, to be brutally honest here, I'm not really getting the provocation for the shooting of this minor and neither do the press or the community groups. If you didn't find the gun at the scene then that's all we have to work with, so we'll just have to assume there wasn't any. Weapons aren't in the habit of disappearing into thin air. Besides, he wasn't even the right guy, was he?" Carter asked as he sat back casually into his chair, still calmly eyeing his target. "You're one lucky bastard Booth that the boy lived; imagine the outcry if you had killed him."

"He was the right guy, as far as I'm concerned. He had a gun, he was going to shoot" Booth interjected vehemently, and Sweets noted with concern that he was beginning to get flustered. "I purposely aimed not to kill him; I don't go out of my way to do that if I can help it. Your proof is that he's still alive. I don't miss. And just whose side are you on anyway?"

With a dismissive nod of the head, Carter ignored the remark. "Not to belabor the point, but you keep saying there was a gun, Agent Booth, yet the forensic team and the other officers who went to the scene immediately after the incident couldn't find one."

"I told you, there were other people there; it was dark, anybody could have picked it up and walked off with it, or hid it in one of the apartments where we couldn't find it. Not all of the people at the scene were immediately accounted for."

"And what would be the motivation for hiding the gun; so that this kid's family could sue us for police brutality? I mean, really, doesn't that sound a little far-fetched to you? For some hypothetical guy to compromise himself by tampering with a crime scene just to set you up?"

"He knows those people, they're his gang buddies. Maybe they were hiding something else. If that gun was used in another crime, they wouldn't want it to be confiscated."

"There's that old paranoia again, eh Booth?" Carter added coldly, in a blatant attempt to elicit an unguarded response. Booth didn't bite. "But you didn't find the gun in any of the apartments either, did you? In any event, the young man maintains he was trying to pull out his cell phone and since this was all that was recovered at the scene, that's all we've got."

"I'm a trained sniper who's been in combat; you think I can't tell a gun from a cell phone?"

"People can misconstrue a gesture or misidentify an object when they're under stress-or are you telling me that you're incapable of making mistakes?" Carter asked with hostility, banging his hands on the table as his baby-face suddenly took on a distinctly menacing appearance. "Why won't you admit that you probably screwed up and just take your lumps? If the whole Bureau's going to have to end up paying and apologizing for your actions, you might as well be honest with yourself about what really happened. You seem to think you're infallible, some kind of god with ammunition. You've acted this way since the first time I dealt with you. Face it, you're just another agent, and just as likely as the rest of us to make mistakes."

"The rest of us?" Booth's thinly veiled contempt was beginning to bleed through and Sweets watched warily, deciding whether to get involved and try to defuse the situation before it escalated-despite Booth's earlier orders about staying mum. "Since when have you ever put your life on the line for anyone, Carter? When's the last time someone took a shot at you? Or you had to kill someone to save somebody else's life?"

"Well, pardon me; I didn't know taking a life was a prerequisite for being a good FBI agent. One would have thought the opposite was true. D.C. streets aren't a gunfight at the OK Corral, Agent Booth. You're not in Iran anymore."

"It was Iraq, you moron. Or don't you even know where U.S. soldiers were deployed to keep your ass safe?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, for your sake," Carter intoned with a patronizing smile. "I just want to point out that this latest incident is one of many we have on file which appear to indicate that you don't always think a situation through before acting. Your first choice seems to generally be aggression; there are other options out there, you know. It doesn't always have to be 'shoot first ask later'."

Booth's patience had reached its limit. "Oh, and when exactly in those spiffy files of yours did you want me to ask? When that terrorist was about to blow a convention filled with innocent bystanders up to high heaven, or when those guys who kidnapped that little boy and cut his finger off started firing their assault rifles at a us? Or when a serial killer threw a knife at an officer's heart, did you want me to ask then?"

"Oh, c'mon Booth. I'm not denying that on limited occasions the use of deadly force may be warranted, but your file is indicative of the fact that it always seems to be your primary option."

"What the hell are you talking about? Most of the time I don't even touch my gun."

Carter opened a folder and took out a document, his voice becoming snide and calculating as he began reading the contents. "Okay, let me see, there's the incident with the ice cream truck, an incident which would have been humorous but for the fact that you fired a weapon in a public street without any sort of provocation, or at least none that a rational person could understand. You ended up under psychiatric care for that one, so I can't be the only one who thinks this specific act demonstrated erratic behavior on your part. We also have complaints about you firing at a speaker, using excessive force on a number of suspects-including one you actually punched out cold during a recent interrogation-threatening suspects, on and on. And yes, there was also that sheriff you fired several shots into as he was driving away. Was it really necessary to turn him into a human sieve when he had already left the scene?"

"He had a gun, a gun he had used at least three times before. I couldn't be sure he wouldn't use it again as he drove away, or run some kid over in that neighborhood."

"Then there's the suspect you let fall to his death."

Okay, Sweets thought-_that_ was his cue, warning or not. Feeling that he had been a bystander long enough, he jumped to his friend's defense. "That was Howard Epps, a convicted serial killer out to kill Agent Booth's partner. Everyone involved in that situation, including officers who witnessed the incident from across the street, corroborated the fact that it was an accident."

Carter's eyes turned methodically to Sweets, as if acknowledging for the first time that he was in the room. "Is that your take on it, Doctor? Because as far as I know you weren't there, were you? As a matter of fact, I would argue that a number of your own observations about Agent Booth confirm many of the allegations about him that have resulted in this conference." He held up another folder and waved it triumphantly in the air.

"Conference? More like a witch-hunt," Booth muttered under his breath, wishing that Sweets had heeded his words about Carter and kept quiet. Good intentions and loose lips would get you nowhere with Internal Affairs people.

"Wait a minute," Sweets interjected frantically. "You can't use my clinical notes; Booth and I shared a doctor/patient relationship at the time and those notes contain privileged and confidential information."

"Oh, I'm sorry; my mistake. Here I thought you were partners; I didn't realize that Agent Booth needed a therapist with him in the field. But no need to worry about your scruples here, Doctor, or Agent, or whatever you are. I'm not using any confidential notes. I'm looking at reports containing observations and recommendations that you submitted to the FBI in your official capacity as an advisor and employee of this organization. _I_ was given access to them, without any particular restrictions as to their use. This isn't privileged information, I promise you." His eyes widening with dismay, Sweets sank back into his chair, unable to come up with a single coherent response and all the while looking at a silent Hacker for help.

His confidence building with every word, and close to what he felt was victory, Carter continued with the relentless onslaught. "Let me once again get to the point, Dr. Sweets. You write in one of your reports, and I'm quoting, 'Agent Booth appears to have some deep seated emotional issues which may result in a tendency to react with undue violence in certain types of situations. Although he generally seems to be able to keep those emotions under control, there have been a limited number of instances where his reactions may have been affected by his emotional connection to a case, particularly where it involves people he may feel are under his protection. Agent Booth and I are currently attempting to resolve these issues, but he is not always eager to comply with my requests for more information about the motivations behind some of his behavior.'"

Sweets looked aghast as his eyes went from an expressionless Booth to Carter. "I said that years ago," he sputtered. "I didn't know Agent Booth all that well at the time. Maybe I overreached in my conclusions. I certainly don't feel that he has any outstanding personal issues that may affect his judgment now. Besides, you took those words out of context. There's plenty in that report as well as others I have provided to the Bureau that indicate I have nothing but the utmost respect for Agent Booth and his ability to react in a perfectly appropriate manner even when confronted by the most trying of circumstances."

Carter was smiling smugly now, and Sweets understood that he had unwittingly fallen right into the interviewer's trap. From the way he studiously avoided looking at him, Booth knew it too.

"Doctor, are you suggesting that your own professional judgment can't be relied on? That your mind can so easily be altered as to make your clinical findings, findings that were tendered to the Bureau as your official recommendations to that agency, worthless? Might it not be that your new and improved perceptions about Agent Booth are due to the fact that you're now "buddy-buddy" with your hot-shot pal here and that you get to play cops and robbers with a shiny new gun, and not to an actual change in the way Agent Booth behaves on the job?"

"I can assure you that everyone who has ever worked with Agent Booth has nothing but the highest opinion of him. Dr. Brennan…"

Booth glared at him. "Don't, Sweets," he said with a low, vehement growl.

But it was too late; Carter pounced at the opening. "Oh yes," he said deliberately, "the beautiful, talented Dr. Temperance Brennan. Agent Booth's former partner, the one he knocked up pretty thoroughly-we sure can rely on her word…"

He didn't get to finish the sentence. Booth rose out of his chair instantly, his figure leaning alarmingly across the table into Carter's seated one. He grabbed Carter's collar and pulled him straight out of his chair as Hacker and Sweets looked on with shocked expressions. The interrogator, now visibly afraid, tried pushing himself away from the table he'd been partly dragged across with no success; "Hacker…" he croaked hoarsely.

"Don't you dare bring her into this" Booth spat out furiously, shoving the interviewer back into his chair hard as he let go of his collar. "Our relationship is none of your business, you understand?"

Initially torn between fear and gloating, Carter's features relaxed slightly on seeing that he was getting exactly what he came for. "Or what?" he taunted, cautiously scooting his chair away from the table this time and setting himself a safe distance from his enraged prey. "What exactly are you going to do to me if I bring her up again, bring up the fact that you've probably been banging her as a fun little hobby for years and influencing everything she's ever said about you and your performance on the job? Bring up the fact that she just had your bastard kid? Go ahead Agent Booth, show me. Or are you going to claim that I pulled a gun on you too?"

Booth's fists clenched once again, his features darkening dangerously as his eyes bore into the seated man. Somewhere in his mind he had a perfect understanding of what was happening, that he was losing all restraint; losing sight of the real issues at stake, but he had stopped caring. "You wait until we're out of this building, and you'll see what I do" he replied in a deceptively calm voice. The room, the other men, everything but Carter had left his field of vision at the mention of Bones' name and of their child by the soulless interrogator.

"Are you listening to this, Assistant Director Hacker?" Carter whined in a high-pitched voice. "He's threatening me, he's doing it right now-you and Dr. Sweets are my witnesses. You see, Doctor? Things haven't really changed all that much, after all. I wish we were videoing this interview-but I think the audio will do."

"Agent Booth," Sweets called with authority, "Booth, Booth-Seeley, don't." At the sound of his Christian name Booth turned his face to Sweets, rage still emanating from his eyes. _He's baiting you; both of us. Don't let him. _

For a split second Sweets was afraid his words wouldn't make a difference, but then he saw Booth exhale and ease off as he sat back down and looked away. Sweets perceived an opportunity to put an end to the damage in the unexpected détente.

"Assistant Director Hacker, I don't believe this meeting is accomplishing anything productive at this point. I suggest we take some time off before regrouping. Don't you agree? Sir?" he added, clearing his throat to get his superior's attention.

"Um sure. Things are getting kind of intense, aren't they?" Hacker looked befuddled as he made the painfully obvious pronouncement. He checked his watch. "Well, I know _I'm_ ready for lunch. I think maybe we should continue this at the beginning of next week, gentlemen, after a little cooling-off period. In the mean time Booth, I'm sorry to say that you're on desk duty pending the outcome of this investigation, per orders of the Internal Affairs Bureau." He reached across the table and patted his subordinate on the arm, adding confidentially "sorry dude. Hey, maybe a little time off your feet will do you some good. You can't be sleeping too well with a brand new baby around. I've heard those things can be a lot of work."

Sweets' mouth hung open at the vaguely incriminating comment, and Carter smirked as both men realized that Hacker had just dug Booth's hole just a little deeper. And everyone in the room but Hacker himself seemed aware of that fact.

"Monday morning, Agent Booth" Carter commanded as he rose from his chair. "Monday morning I expect you to go over your account of the shooting again after thinking long and hard about what really might have happened two days ago. An honest mistake may be bad, but not nearly as bad for your career as something that's looking more and more like an exercise in bad judgment or worse, a cover-up. Have a nice weekend, gentlemen." He walked quickly by Booth, carefully avoiding any eye-contact. "Consider your available options" he threw out without bothering to look back. "Make things easier on yourself and your…family. Because come Monday, your fate is sealed; you won't be able to change your story."

After Carter's departure, an eerie silence descended on the room. At any other time Sweets might have felt nervously compelled to fill the void with some commentary, but not today. Hacker was the first of the remaining men to stand up. "Wow, that was something wasn't it? These Internal Affairs boys are sure thorough" he said, in what was clearly a misguided effort to bring things back to normal. "Sorry about all this; it's just routine, you know. Well, I'm hungry" he stated, getting ready to leave. "And don't worry Booth, I'm sure it'll all work out. I think he's just bluffing. Things will blow over; they always do. Oh, and say hi to Tempe for me, ok?" Booth's expression was distant, but Sweets felt certain that the casual mention of Dr. Brennan by her former suitor couldn't have been well-received. He was proud of Booth, another kick in the gut-inadvertent this time-and he had held up pretty well. He couldn't say the same thing about himself. He was mortified, embarrassed beyond the pale by the contents of that old report. He'd completely forgotten about ever writing those things until Carter brought them up. Shut-he should have listened to Booth and just kept his big mouth shut. In the aftermath of the calamitous meeting the two partners glumly walked back to Booth's office, with the older man continuing to wear an inscrutable expression and the younger one walking a step behind him in penance.


	3. Chapter 3

The door to Booth's office shut with a definitive "click" as Sweets leaned against it crestfallen, wishing furiously that he was anywhere but the FBI building, maybe inside some video game where he could have the opportunity to replay and alter the events of the last 60 minutes. He brought a hand up to his forehead; "Booth..."

"Stop, Sweets. Stop right now. Don't apologize-I'm not upset at you, okay?" Booth's anger was still palpable, but it was beginning to wane as he emptied his pockets on the desk before sitting down. He picked up the worn poker chip and held it in one hand, turning it over and over with his fingers. "It's what Carter does, divide and conquer. If anyone's at fault here it's me" he said, anger flaring once more. "I knew better-" a closed fist smacked the top of the desk, making his keys jangle a little. "I knew better than to give him what he wanted-and I did it anyway. Handed it to him on a silver platter." He ran a hand over his hair as he sat back into his chair, his expression now one of hopelessness. "I can't believe I took that bait." The words, intended mostly for himself, found a receptive audience just a few feet away.

"And I still can't believe he set us up that way-that he would use all that personal information against you. It's unethical. And for the record, I think you showed remarkable restraint when he mentioned Dr. Brennan. I'm more than willing to testify that she never…"

The poker chip went back on the desk abruptly. "I just want her kept out of this mess. And I don't _ever_ want her to know what he said about her, about us-she's been through enough already, okay?" The image of Carter mentioning his girlfriend made his blood boil all over again.

"That I got tricked that way... I'm so, so sorry Booth. I swear, those notes were from ages ago. I shouldn't have been so hasty with my judgments at the time. I've seen for long time now that you don't let your personal feelings affect your reactions the way I originally theorized."

"I know that Sweets. And you know what else? Maybe your observations about me back then weren't so far off. I might have had a few issues I didn't really want to look at, and maybe sometimes they did end up influencing how I acted. I'm not going to blame you for being more perceptive about my life back then than I was willing to be."

"Still, I feel like I just betrayed you." Sweets shook his head; if only he could find words of apology that were more adequate to the task. "And his tactics, wow...they were way low."

"Forget about it Sweets, that's what they do during these interviews" Booth said with a shrug of his shoulders. "They split partners up, trick them into turning on each other. Just don't give him the satisfaction of thinking he's succeeded with his mission. If you do, then he's won. Besides, it's not like I can legitimately complain about what he did; I've used those tricks myself plenty of times during the course of an investigation."

"Yeah, so have I" Sweets replied quietly. "And now I feel pretty awful about doing it. To be honest, I'm not feeling too good about my job in general, right about now."

"Hey, what you and I do, we do it mainly to help people, especially those who aren't around anymore to help themselves" Booth intoned with with emotion. "This guy, he just does it for kicks, to make you feel smaller than he is. There's a big difference, if nothing else in our purpose-don't let him make you forget that."

He nodded in agreement, but Sweets seriously doubted he'd be believing that for a while. "So what's going to happen? To you?"

Looking around the room for an answer that he knew couldn't possibly be found there, Booth gave up. "I don't know," he answered truthfully.

"And Hacker, why wouldn't he step in, put an end to what was clearly an improper line of questioning? And the stuff he did end up saying..."

"Hacker's Hacker" Booth interrupted. "I expected no more-and no less-of him. Besides, he had nothing to do with my behavior; I can't go around blaming others for my reactions."

"Maybe I should have lied, told them I saw the gun too. I'm a hundred percent certain _you_ did, and I'm good with that."

"Never do that, okay?" Booth replied with a trace of irritation. "I couldn't live with that kind of assistance. If we don't have faith that the system can somehow get to the bottom of things the right way, then we have no business being a part of it. Don't lie for me Sweets, please. I appreciate it, but I've never _ever_ had to rely on lies to get by."

"I won't. I'm sorry I mentioned her-believe me, I had no idea where he would go with that." Sweets winced at the memory of what followed his reference to Dr. Brennan, still stunned by the unforeseeable turn the interview had taken. "And about what was in my reports, again Booth, I'm really sorry about that too. I was cocky and maybe I felt I had something to prove at the time, that I could provide valuable insights to my new employer. I should have never made those blanket pronouncements about you. I based my findings on superficial knowledge, and I meant it when I said that that I don't feel that way about you at all now. In fact," he paused and looked away from Booth before once again finding his partner's eyes "I can say with complete certainly that you are the person I admire and respect the most other than my adoptive parents. I think of you as family, as a brother, and I'm really upset that you had to hear the stuff I wrote about you. I'm pretty ashamed, in fact."

Despite all that was weighing on his mind right now, Booth smiled kindly. "Thanks Sweets. Don't be so hard on yourself. Like I said, when you met me, the things you said were probably pretty accurate, even if I didn't like hearing them at the time. But I'd like to think that things have changed since then, even if my behavior today doesn't exactly prove the point. And for the record, you're a lot less trouble than my real little brother, if that helps."

"Thanks" Sweets said, laughing a little before his expression became worried once again. "Do you think Carter will really go through with his threat about the Bureau hanging you out to dry? Don't they usually stick with their agents unless something is really egregious which, for the record, this wasn't?"

"I don't know how things will go this time" Booth replied, his eyes lost in thought. "Yeah, usually they do stick up for their people, but I just don't know how much they'll defer to Carter. The higher ups could see this as an opportunity to issue a blanket apology for some questionable procedures they've been criticized for lately. Make an example out of this situation. Besides, that guy's had it in for me for a long time. He's going to put some extra effort into this one."

"Any particular reason for that?"

Well, yes, maybe he had brought at least some of this on himself. "It's possible I wasn't as diplomatic as I should've been the first time they put him on my case a couple of years ago. He was so used to people kissing his butt to get on his good side, and I don't think he liked it when I made it clear I wasn't going to beg him for mercy for something I didn't do. He doesn't like it when people stand up to him-and now he's come back to finish the job, maybe get some brownie points for it."

Sweets seemed surprised. "That's all? It seems like a very petty reason to grill you like this."

An impish half-smile appeared on Booth's lips. "Maybe he didn't like it when I shoved him into the wall outside of my apartment. He was hounding me about a witness complaint and brought up some past personal issues I wasn't too happy hearing about. I just wanted him off my case, and he didn't appreciate it. He threatened to report me, but it was his word against mine and I don't think he really wanted to be seen as a wimp, so he never did. But he also didn't forget about it. I swear, whenever there's a problem, he just begs to be put in charge. He told me once he would get me one day; maybe he has" he finished in a low voice.

"What if he wants to talk to Dr. Brennan?" It was a possibility, Sweets realized, albeit an ugly one.

Booth's features set in defiance. "He won't," he said firmly. "She has nothing to do with this case. He better not" he added, with a little bit less self-assurance. "'Bones is tired; she's had a rough time since the baby was born. She lost a lot of blood during the delivery and she hasn't been sleeping well. No one has."

"Colic still?"

"Yeah. It's getting better. We'll get there, eventually. I don't need her worrying about one more thing."

After their conversation ended Booth sat quietly at his desk watching as his younger partner walked away. Once again he felt the wave of frustration that had come over him earlier today start to build back up. That guy was such an ass, but what if there was even a remote possibility that he was right? What if there really hadn't been a gun? He was so sure, so damn sure, but what if? Night after night of getting up with the baby was beginning to take its toll. He could see it; things he'd forgotten, appointments he had almost missed. Even his speed at the firing range had been compromised, though not, thank God, his accuracy. The stamina of youth was no longer available to compensate for lost sleep. His injury, her condition; what if in his less than alert state he had failed to notice that the shine emerging from under that kid's jacket hadn't been a gun but a cell-phone? So, so sure, but what if?

And in the process, poor Sweets had unwittingly become yet another of Carter's hapless victims. With all his book-knowledge and his rehearsals, he'd been so easy to manipulate, to direct, falling right into Carter's trap maybe in part because he was so confident in his skills. That, and he still innocently lived under the notion that good people wouldn't be thrown under the bus by the people they had faithfully served. He really hoped Sweets wouldn't end up beating himself over this for too long. It hadn't been his fault. Besides, Carter was a consummate pro at badgering; the master of innuendo. Booth could detect the triumph in his eyes this time, the look that told him that maybe he'd finally gotten his man.

Bones would have reacted much better under the same conditions, he thought, with her cold hard facts and the overwhelming force of her logic. Thinking about it squeezed his heart just a little. He liked working with Sweets; he couldn't have been assigned anyone better, despite his lack of field training. But he missed Bones, being with her, relying on her judgment and her level head. The fact was, he just plain missed her. And no way the Bureau would rely on her opinion of him now whenever any controversy arose. She was compromised solely by virtue of her personal association with him. Because they could never know her like he did, know that she wasn't capable of lying regardless of the circumstance, they would never accept the truth in anything she said that involved him. So maybe in this one instance, it didn't really matter whether it was her or Sweets in that conference room. The fact of the matter was that he was screwed.


	4. Chapter 4

She was sorting through her e-mails when she heard the front door open. "Hi" he said softly, his tone of voice light but his eyes guarded and unfriendly. Brennan took one look at him and she immediately saw that his day hadn't been good. The interview, of course. It had totally escaped her along with so many other things today and she guiltily reflected on the fact that she hadn't even called to ask about it.

"How was the inquest?"

"The inquisition, you mean?" Booth replied tonelessly, taking off his jacket and throwing it over the back of the sofa where it mingled with several unhung coats. He really had no intention of answering that question right now, if ever, and definitely in no amount of detail; he silently prayed this wasn't going to be one of those times when his girlfriend expected full disclosure. As he loosened his tie he looked around, resignedly taking in the sorry state of their house. If possible, it looked even more disorganized than how he'd left it this morning.

She followed the path of his eyes with a mixture of wariness and shame, truly regretting the fact now that she hadn't at least tried to tidy up before he came home. Reviewing the report for the Jeffersonian had taken much more of her time than expected, and he'd come home early. Things must be grim indeed for him to leave work before the end of the day.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there."

"Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted to be."

"That bad?"

"Yup."

"Did you strike someone?" She said it with a smile and deep down he knew she didn't mean anything by the comment but he wasn't in the mood for humor, especially when the subject hit so close to home. The remote possibility that Bones could share Carter's opinion of him stung.

"What? No, of course not. Why, do you think I would do that?" he asked defensively, and Brennan knew her attempt at gaiety had missed its mark. Mollifying was not her forte, but she tried her hand at it for his sake.

"It was meant as an inconsequential remark, Booth. Don't be angry; I wasn't judging you-I didn't mean to imply that that you're a violent person. Merely that under certain very specific circumstances you might find it difficult to control your temper. I believe I wouldn't have, myself, depending on the nature of the accusation. I have very little tolerance for unfounded conclusions. Would you like to talk about it?" she offered conciliatorily.

Booth shook his head. "Nah-later. Where's baby?"

"I put her down for her nap. Please don't go in her room; if she doesn't sleep now, it'll throw her whole schedule off."

_What schedule was she talking about?_ he wondered, maybe a little too unkindly. The chaos that was their life lately had no schedule known to man.

"I haven't started dinner yet. Are you hungry? I'll go make something."

"I'm not hungry. I'm just going to have a beer for now. You want anything?"

"No thank you. As you know, alcoholic beverages can end up in the breast milk. We don't want to make baby tipsy, do we?" She laughed a little at her own joke, but Booth didn't join her, his thoughts still inside that conference room with Carter. He saw her smile fade; his bad mood was starting to rub off on her, he could tell, but even with that knowledge he couldn't seem to be able to keep his emotions from taking him-and maybe her-right to the edge of the cliff.

He pulled a bottle from the fridge and took a swig, closing his eyes. _What if, what if…_._a gun, a cell phone... _With that first bitter swallow all the tension that had been accumulating throughout the day suddenly turned into a landslide of exhaustion. All at once he felt drained, empty, and vaguely afraid that he might not be able to find a way out of this mess the rest of the evening without some sort of unwarranted confrontation. She didn't deserve to see this side of him, and he worried about the consequences of that possible reveal.

"Are you still angry at me about my previous comment?" she asked quietly.

"I'm not angry, I'm just…tired." He knew he should be more charitable towards her concern for him, but right now he just felt like he needed to be left alone for a while. Alone, or in bed, losing himself inside of her, something that couldn't happen for God knew how much longer. He exhaled in frustration; it had been a long, long day-a long pair of months actually, when you got right down to it.

On sensing his continuing resistance to her overtures she decided to let things go; she'd inquire about the specifics of his day later, when his defenses weren't turned on maximum. If there was one thing she had learned from being with Booth it's that timing was everything. She changed the subject. "Booth, I've been looking all day for some notes I misplaced. Did you see them this morning?"

He was glad she dropped the previous topic; there really was no need to keep making her feel like she was defusing an explosive about to go off.

"Huh? No." he answered absently, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know; where were they?" He tried to concentrate harder on the question, but this morning felt like it happened a million years ago. If he wasn't looking down at himself at this very moment he wouldn't even be able to describe what he had on, not if his life depended on it. _A gun...a cell phone..._

"They were on a yellow notepad. I believe I left them in the kitchen yesterday. You were the last one in there last night."

"Where in the kitchen?"

"Near the microwave. Those notes are very important; I have a deadline to meet. I've looked everywhere and I can't find them."

He felt the accusation in her voice, even when she hadn't necessarily intended any. "I don't know, Bones. I mean, this place is a mess. I cleaned up the kitchen last night and threw out some newspapers on the counter. I suppose they could have fallen in. Yeah, it's possible there was something yellow in there, but it didn't exactly scream out 'important'."

She stared at him slack jawed. "And you didn't think to pull it out and see what it was? Where's the trash? There was an empty bag there this morning."

"I threw it out when I left; I was doing you a favor" he answered sullenly, his tone of voice rising in anticipation of the fight he was certain was coming. Was he really supposed to sift through piles of garbage every night when he got home just to look for her things?

"Booth! That notepad contained important material" she said plaintively, panicking as the specter of writing yet one more thing hung above her with all the menace of a hangman's noose. She wasn't sure she possessed the energy to recreate the lost chapter for her publisher and she suddenly found herself fighting back tears. "You have to be more careful, Booth! That's exactly why we didn't get a housekeeper in the first place, so that our things wouldn't be compromised."

With her words of reproach Booth felt his mood drifting back into deep and dangerous waters, and damn if he wasn't going to end up pulling her right there with him. Hacker's craven need to please, Carter's comments about his relationship with Bones, the whole implication that it was so easy for him to take a life. He took another swig of beer hoping for a quick mood enhancer, but all that came with it was the lightheadedness that results from drinking on an empty stomach-never a good idea, a voice at the back of his head reminded him. He set the bottle down on what little open space he could find on the kitchen counter, noticing the sudden quiet that had come over their house. Almost automatically he fired back.

"How do you expect me to know what's important around here? Look at this place, there's stuff everywhere." His arm made a sweeping motion. "I mean, magazines on the floor, dishes piled up to the ceiling. I was trying to do you a favor by cleaning up. I work all day and come home to this mess, and you have the nerve to get upset because I might have thrown out the wrong thing? And what in the blazes are you doing anyway? I thought you were going to give work a rest for a while. Isn't that the whole point of maternity leave?" The black waters crept a little closer. "Shouldn't you focus on the house first?" It was a cheap dig, his conscience whispered, but he couldn't seem to stop.

If he hadn't figured out before what effect his words would have, all he had to do was look in her direction. Beyond indignant-livid, furious; she could probably come up with her own more descriptive terminology.

"I'm working with the few resources I currently have available, Booth" she replied angrily. "I'm taking care of the baby, helping out Cam and the interns…"

"What? I thought you told them you were on sabbatical. Why on earth are they calling you? They've got plenty of people working there; they can do without you for three months."

A piercing blue stare was aimed in his direction. "You think I'm so fungible that I can leave the Jeffersonian and not be missed?" she asked coldly.

"They sure as hell got along fine without you when you left for Maluku."


	5. Chapter 5

He knew it would be bad the minute the words left his mouth. The comment stopped her cold and he could see the color, along with any traces of emotion, leaving her face. He should have apologized, told her he didn't mean it. That he wasn't even sure why he brought it up, other than because he knew it would hurt and the whole day had left him angry and raw and with the need to lash out. In truth he never thought about that fateful decision anymore, just like Hannah never crossed his mind. Never. And he understood why Bones had left; he didn't resent her for it. So why, why had he brought it up? It could only make him look like a spiteful, mean-spirited ass, which is exactly how he was feeling. He _needed_ to apologize, should have done it immediately, but the heavy, blinding fog that had been clouding his mind since this morning's interview wouldn't allow for a graceful exit and he found it impossible to back off. Stubbornness; it wasn't one of his better traits and the foul mood he was already in wasn't helping. And just as he'd feared earlier, he had managed to yank her right there into the fires of hell with him.

The commotion of their argument had the unintended effect of startling their daughter and making her cry. He should have gotten down on his knees in front of the woman he loved and begged for forgiveness, but instead he watched almost numbly as she turned around and headed to the baby's room without saying a word. He'd dug his own grave and now he was too proud to do anything but sit in it as the dirt started piling up around him, cutting him off from the one person he could least afford to lose.

Standing under the bright kitchen lights in shell-shocked silence, he doggedly refused to look too hard at what had just happened because it could only be bad, very bad for him. So instead he held on to the last remaining shreds of self-righteousness, the ones that offered some hope that maybe she was at least partly to blame for his outburst. If he could have only decompressed somewhere before coming home…In the past, whenever a precarious mood struck, he would retreat to his apartment to let the storm blow over. It was much better to stew alone, without exposing anyone to the fallout from his temper. Those days were gone and it was time to come up with a better coping mechanism, one that didn't involve hurting his loved ones. Was it too late to figure that one out? God, he hoped not.

The baby stopped crying and he debated going into her room to take over after the feeding was done; it was the normal routine, his time with baby after work. But of course, there would be nothing normal about tonight and he took one final swig of beer before heading to the bedroom, ready to accept whatever punishment was coming to him. He was almost to the door when Bones, pale and quiet, walked out with their infant, her eyes pointedly refusing to meet his. He didn't know if it was possible to feel any more like a lowlife. In an act of contrition he reached out for their daughter and took her gently, trying to make eye contact with his girlfriend. But she simply walked right past him and without a comment grabbed her purse and coat and walked out the front door. His heart sank. It was getting late; she was tired, hadn't eaten, and guilt, thick and abrading, began building up inside of him. But regardless of guilt, nothing good could come from following her or trying to explain himself at this point; he knew that much. That would have to come later, assuming she would be willing to listen.

Their daughter, oblivious to the debacle that had just transpired, looked at him with big eyes that were getting bluer every day, just like her mother's. So innocent, so sweet, completely unaware of the poison that had just emanated from him just a few minutes ago. How could he have let all the crap in the office make him forget that his first duty, to protect and comfort, was owed to the people in his life above all? Why did he bring all those strangers, with their accusations and their doubt, into the safe-haven of his home? Hacker, Carter, that young thug who almost certainly had been wielding a gun-they had no place anywhere near his family, and he had brought them all with him tonight.

For the next three hours he walked restlessly up and down their house, talking baby talk to their daughter in a frantic attempt to forget what had just happened. Bones wouldn't answer his calls-he couldn't blame her-but it only made his worry grow. Should he call Angela to see whether she was at her house? Or ring down to the lab, to check with security if she'd come by? He didn't dare call her dad-he'd promised Max with a certainty that was now laughable that he would never hurt his daughter and now he was too ashamed to face him, even if it was only from a distance. Besides, he didn't feel like bringing anyone else into it. He didn't need the extra lashings-his conscience was doing a fine job punishing him already. Not that an outsider had any chance of helping with this one. This time, there would be no Cam, no Angela, no Sweets to smooth things over; no quick resolution like there had been in the past when all they had to worry about were misunderstandings about moving in and the protocols surrounding what they could and couldn't do in public. Because this time, the error had been huge, and terrible and deliberate, and right now he was feeling like he might just not have enough in him to fix it.

After giving her a bath and a breast-mile bottle that Bones had left behind, he took his little girl with him into the kitchen to attempt a clean-up. Like it could possibly be some sort of reparation for the damage he was sure he'd caused. How the hell was washing a pile of dishes supposed to fix anything? And he wondered for the millionth time in the last 48 hours whether his temper and the shooting were connected. Was it possible he pulled the trigger too soon, saw something in the shadows that wasn't there? Just like he took offense a few hours ago at a comment that carried no malice?

Holding his daughter against his chest he turned to wipe the counter, accidentally causing the beer bottle to tip over and fall on the wood floor. It didn't break, but its remaining contents spread out, reaching the fringes of the carpet in the dining room. He uttered a silent curse, and bent over with the baby held close in one arm and a paper towel in the other to clean up the spill.

And it hit him. Everything. The bad mood, the argument, his cutting words, the smell of beer already stale from sitting on the counter too long.

_"You're such a f***-up, Seeley. I have news for you; no one's ever gonna put up with you. Ever. You screw everything that you touch." _The alcohol-laden voice, one he knew so well, was coming from a day long gone with its well-worn message. The message and the voice were intimately familiar to him, even if he hadn't heard them in more than 30 years. And the entire scene unfolded before him with the power of something immediate and unavoidable. Two kids engaging in banned horseplay in a dingy living room, the blurred sounds of a radio broadcast joining in with their muffled squeals. Baseball, it was baseball season, and their team was in the playoffs. Their dad had left to go to the corner liquor store and Jared used the opportunity to start a game of tag. He knew better than to join in, but he was still a boy himself and that's what boys did. Chase and wrestle and laugh, until Jared had come too close to their dad's chair and knocked over a beer can that had been left on the tv tray next to it. Both boys stopped in surprise, and Jared's eyes glowed with terror, already glassy with impending tears.

_"It's okay Jared; look, it's not that bad. I'll just clean it up_. _There was hardly anything left-maybe he won't notice."_ He ran into the kitchen and got some napkins, his ears peeled for the sound of the front door that was set to open any second now. He was hunched over sopping up the spill when his shoulder accidentally knocked the radio off the table, dumping its bellyful of batteries on the floor. But that wasn't the worst part; the fall had broken the antenna and he saw his life flashing before his eyes. This, he couldn't fix. He had broken something in the process of doing something he shouldn't have been doing, and there was nothing that could change the outcome.

In that same minute, both boys heard the front door open and his younger brother's face went white.

_"Jared, go upstairs, right now. Right now, okay? I'll take care of it. Just go in the bedroom and shut the door."_

And he had taken care of things, sort of. His father's bleary eyes hadn't seen the damage yet, so he decided to volunteer the information in the hopes that confessing would minimize the consequences.

_"Dad, I'm real sorry. I knocked over the beer on the table by accident. I was trying to clean it up and I made the radio fall. I'm sorry. I'll pay for a new one out of my allowance, I promise. I'm sorry."_ His voice kept rising higher and higher with every passing second of his dad's silence.

His dad put the brown bag he'd brought on the dining table and walked over to look at the damage. Picking the radio up by the handle, he put the batteries back in and turned it on only to hear static.

_"I'm sorry dad…"_

He didn't get a chance to say anything else. His upper arms were gripped by strong hands and squeezed so tight he could feel fingernails making gouges in his skin even through the sleeves of his t-shirt.

_"I wanted to hear the end of that damn game, Seeley. You know the television's broken-I needed that radio! What the hell were you doing going by there anyway-tryin' to take a swig out of my beer? I told you I'd tan your hide if I ever saw you doing that again. Don't lie to me-I'm not your grandfather. I don't buy your stories like he does."_

_"I swear dad, it was an accident. I didn't touch it!"_ He caught himself; the can was still on floor, someone had to have touched it. "_Maybe I was walking too close, but I didn't mean to."_

His dad's breath, hot and acrid, was in his face and he closed his eyes against the loud voice. "_You're such a f***-up, Seeley. I have news for you; no one's ever gonna put up with you. Ever. You screw everything that you touch. It's your damn mom's fault for spoiling you rotten-she made you soft. Well, she's not here anymore and I'm not putting up with your s***."_ A strong shake followed by a walloping shove that sent him flying backwards, and as his head hit the wall he started to cry, despite his best efforts not to.

His arms were released and he saw his dad's hand go through his hair as the anger left his face all at once, like it usually happened. Suddenly his father looked old, with all the fight gone out of him.

_"You're just like your mom and the rest of that family"_ he said with little emotion. "_Make a mess, leave it to others to clean it up. You can't even own up to your mistakes. You've got no spine Seeley and you're never gonna do anything with your life."_ The slurred words held weary disappointment, and he couldn't help feeling that maybe there was something wrong with him, something that made his dad so angry all the time, that made his mother leave.

_"She's not here to cover up for you anymore. Your mom took the easy way out, and you're probably gonna end up just like her. At least Jared's not like that, like the rest of them. He's the strong one, the one with common sense, just like me. Just don't you mess him up. And Seeley" _he said, opening another can of beer and heading up into his bedroom,_ "no more allowance for you the rest of the year. That radio was damn expensive. And you better lay low for a long time. You get it? You hear me?"_

_Yes sir._ And just like that, the earthquake was over. It was their code name for their dad's outbursts, for when they could see the mood turning. And the earthquakes had gotten more and more frequent as the household went further into disrepair after their mother's death, despite Pop's frequent visits and his aunt's steady attempts to keep the house in order. It hadn't always been this bad with him, but lately...

By the time he made it upstairs, Jared had fallen asleep still in the school clothes he'd worn earlier and he was sure that his brother hadn't brushed his teeth. It could wait until tomorrow. He himself followed suit and without any further delay climbed into the top of the bunk bed, pulling the covers tight around him. But he wouldn't allow himself to fall asleep for a long time, not until he felt reasonably certain that their dad wouldn't be exploding into the room in another fit of ire, like had happened before. Terror, he still felt it in his heart, and hatred and helplessness; emotions that shouldn't have been available to a ten year old but which were already sadly familiar to him. All mixed together with the suspicion that maybe deep down it might be his fault that things were the way they were and fear that despite his best efforts he just didn't have what it took to make them better.


	6. Chapter 6

She didn't cry-couldn't-because the stoic in her wouldn't allow it. No tears when she first heard the words and not later, while she was processing their impact alone with their baby in her room. Shock, indignation-_that_ came first. And anger-that he would bring it up, years after the fact. That he would throw that decision in her face when she wasn't in any condition to fight back. Anger that she couldn't just get on the next plane out of Washington DC, away from him and from their argument. Away from a life where all reference points were disappearing without warning.

But a baby changed everything; she could now confirm from personal experience that this broad generalization was true. Temperance Brennan was no longer in a position to pack a duffle bag and give her employer a few hours' notice of an unexpected, urgent request coming from somewhere around the world. A leave that would automatically be granted, however grudgingly, because of her inherent worth as a first-rate scientist and the irreplaceable nature of what she did. But as much as this new state of affairs may have been noticed in passing before, what transpired with Booth this evening underscored in glaringly painful detail the fact that her failsafe escape route no longer existed. Adding to the injury? The fact that she didn't have an alternate plan. Just when exactly had it become reasonable to assume she wouldn't be needing one?

_They sure as hell got along just fine without you when you left…_ How dare he?

The growing, bitter resentment she felt fueled her drive through streets that were beginning to empty of traffic; it made getting to the Jeffersonian that much easier. The lab had practically been home for years and she could still feel its pull, even after all this time. Not nearly remote of a location as far as she was concerned, certainly not as good as she could have done before, but it would have to suffice. At least until a better replacement became apparent.

Walking into the building's side entrance, the one for personnel, she was caught off-guard by how unnerved it suddenly it made her feel; maybe because she hadn't been here in months and the place seemed oddly foreign now. Her eyes glanced furtively around the small lobby, immediately noticing even the little things that were different. Signs rearranged, exhibits moved, a new paint color on the walls. She recognized almost no one on night duty, not even the security officer behind the main desk. The changes weren't huge in the scheme of things but even so they filled her with an almost overwhelming sense of longing. Tonight she wanted, needed things to be exactly the same here, if nowhere else-and they weren't.

"Good evening Dr. Brennan" an aging guard greeted her brightly. "We don't see you around these parts much at night anymore." She looked at the nametag while writing her own name down on the log-Bernard Kingsley. There was no memory of him, though evidently he remembered her.

"No" she admitted quietly. "I haven't worked late in quite some time. Where's the other watchman who's usually here in the evenings-Micah, I believe that's his name?"

"Oh, you really haven't been here in a while. Micah was transferred to the American Indian Museum a few months ago on account of all the budget cuts. He kind of lucked out in the deal; better hours for sure. Although he wasn't real happy about it-says he's going to miss all the different lectures at the Jeffersonian. That Micah's something else" the officer said good-naturedly as he shook his head. "Sitting through some lecture over getting home early-can't understand that."

"Is anyone else from the lab staff working tonight?" She asked the question casually, with all the disinterest she could feign. But in truth, the possibility of meeting anyone she knew right now was deeply upsetting and almost kept her from coming in; it wasn't something she felt like dealing with. Far too many questions, without much hope of a single believable answer. It was the problem with being a bad liar.

"Gosh no, although you just missed Dr. Saroyan. She always stays late, but life must be good these days" the man said with a chuckle. "She's been going home early the last couple of weeks. I mean, early for _her._ Just about everyone else leaves like a bat out of hell a little after six-probably stuff to do at home. The place is pretty much dead after that."

_Dead; the place is dead._ She wondered if he said it intentionally, but there was no awareness of any pun in his voice. "Thank you Mr." she looked at the name tag again; Booth was always reminding her that people appreciated being referenced by their name. "Mr. Kingsley. I will be a while. If anyone calls, please explain that I'm busy and I can't be disturbed. Good night."

"Absolutely, Dr. Brennan. Just don't you be here all that late m'am; I'm sure they'll be missing you at home."

As she walked by the platform an overpoweringly unpleasant image instantly cropped up, leaving her wondering whether that particular memory could ever fade enough. Poor Mr. Nigel-Murray; there weren't too many times when she didn't question the inherent fairness of getting a whole extra year of life that he'd been denied. In the end she walked by quickly, shutting her mind to the ugly thoughts. Irrespective of the memories, it wasn't her intended destination.

_He had heard from Sweets she was leaving..._

Entering the bone room, otherwise known to the staff as the limbo of the Jeffersonian, the place where people waited years, decades and possibly all of eternity to be claimed by the living she was struck by a thought. The place was dead and she was going straight to nowhere. There were too many uncomfortable metaphors there to comprehend. Its colorless tonality and the stark white lighting only added to the effect, as did the persistent chill in the air and the smell of age. When others routinely avoided working there because they found its contents depressing, it was always her favorite place in the entire building except maybe for the Egyptian halls. She felt oddly reassured within its confines, cohabiting with those without known connections, accepting the fact that for her the connections might never come. It was a strong sense of kinship that no one else seemed to share. And the room invariably gave her a sense of purpose few other places had. By annointing herself custodian of the remains and laboring on their behalf she made it a point to announce, often to no one in particular, that the people they once had been were not forgotten because she remembered them.

The dead were unfailingly good company; harboring no grudges, asking for nothing-expecting nothing. Incapable of disappointing or of being disappointed in turn. The rules of the bone room were relatively straightforward; you waited, you observed. Life went on around you but it never touched you, and at the end of the day you were the same as you had been at the beginning. But what she didn't know when she agreed to venture outside its walls with Booth was that once you left the safety of your observation deck things changed forever; never again would you be in control of events-they now controlled you. You were inexorably left at the mercy of circumstances in which you had uncommonly little to say.

_Would you have partnered up with him all those years ago if you had known? Would you?_

She couldn't recall the last time she was here this late, with her absences beginning even before she found out she was pregnant. On the night following their first time together, to be precise. Booth and his distractions, and he was supremely adept at distracting. He'd hold onto her hand as she attempted heading back to the office, pulling her close, saying something patently ridiculous, sweet, as he gave her one of his trademark smiles. Cajoling her into going home with him or taking him home with her, until late nights at the office slowly became a thing of the past.

_C'mon Bones, it's late-let's go home. You can finish up whatever you're doing there. I'll drop you off at the lab extra early tomorrow-pretty please?_ And In the process of looking at her with his puppy dog eyes and whispering warm promises into her ear, all with her willing, happy consent, he'd managed to almost make her forget about her life's first passion.

Pulling out a drawer at random she read the identifying tag: August 25, 1956. Female, Caucasian, approximate age 20, slim build, below average height. A widened pelvic area indicated she had given birth, the fractured vertebrae in her neck evidencing a quick death via strangulation. A wealth of minute information, from how well she ate as a child to the way she'd taken care of her teeth, except for the one thing that mattered the most: her name. How could anyone end up here and not be missed? Wasn't she someone's daughter, sister or at least a friend? It wasn't much of a question. If anyone knew the answer, it was Temperance Brennan.

In deference to old habits she began meticulously laying out the bones on the examination table one by one, readying the tools of her trade, set to go over in excruciating detail what others had perhaps carelessly missed before. The whole process had the intended calming effect; it always did, and that's in part why she was here. But as she narrowed her mental focus she found that her heart really wasn't in it. No matter how hard she tried, fatigue and stress made even rudimentary concentration impossible. After a brief internal struggle she gave up; it didn't seem fair to the victim to treat her with such inattention when there'd already been more than enough of that in her life. So the remains were dutifully put back into the drawer and saved for a time when they could be done fuller justice. Regardless of anyone else's priorities, she made a vow to find out this nameless young woman's identity when she came back to work. _When she came back to work…_

"_Maybe I've lost my advantage because of all the people I'm involved with." "Bones, you don't mean that."_

A walk back to the car and a giant headache in the making and the realization that something else had changed. The Jeffersonian wasn't home anymore and hadn't been for quite a long time; whatever awaited her there, home was now a rambling two-story house half an hour away. She pulled out her phone before putting the key in the ignition, scrolling through the messages. An endless series of calls from Booth that were fully expected but had no hope of being returned.

"_I have a sense that everything's changing." "Well, not everything-we're still partners." _

"Hi dad."

"Tempe! So nice to get a call from my favorite daughter." She could hear the smile in his voice and the affection it contained almost made her smile as well.

"I'm your only daughter" she answered dryly.

"Even if you weren't, you'd still be my favorite one. And how's that sweet little grandchild of mine? Sleeping through the night yet?"

"Not exactly." No, not exactly.

"So what's up honey, is something wrong? Much as I would love having a 'checking up on you dad' moment with you, you're way too practical to waste a perfectly good phone call on small talk. Are things going okay?"

"I just had a stressful day."

"And that big lug of a boyfriend of yours-everything ok there?"

"Booth had a stressful day too."

"Aha" Max said thoughtfully. "I'm starting to get the picture-you and Booth had a fight."

"No…yes," she finally agreed. Wasn't sharing that bit of news the whole point of the call, after all?

"Mind giving me some details? I'm not trying to be nosy here honey, it's just that your habit of being frugal with your words to the point of muteness always makes it kind of hard for me to diagnose the patient's condition."

"It was just a difficult day dad, that's all." It was almost impossible to be forthcoming with just how difficult it had been. After a brief pause she forced herself to go on. "I find that having a child is hard; I believe I may have overestimated my qualifications in that area. Sometimes I feel that…that maybe I should have limited myself to the things that I'm good at, although it's quite apparent that it's too late now to choose that option."

The unexpected admission immediately caught Max by surprise. "Self-pity, Tempe?" he asked, concerned. "That's not you; now you're really starting to worry me. What's going on?"

"A child, a long-term relationship. I'm not sure I was meant to experience those things. You and mom, you made having a family seem easy."

"Well, in the end our perfect little family life didn't turn out all that great for you guys, did it? Maybe we really weren't really the best example for you to follow." His voice was thick with regret.

"I think you may be falling victim to some pretty unrealistic expectations here. Honey, there isn't a single marriage that doesn't have its flaws-some people are just better at keeping it from their kids than others. I loved your mother an awful lot, and I'm pretty sure she loved me just as much. Maybe if fate had been kinder and I'd made better choices we'd still be together now, but that doesn't mean that our relationship didn't have its Tennessee Williams moments every now and then. Minus Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, of course" he added with a touch of dark humor. She could tell that Max was struggling to find the right words for her like he had when she was a child in need of reassurance.

"Whatever it is, I've seen you and Booth together; you two can get through anything. You want me to call him up and give him some hell? I know how much he appreciates that."

"No dad." She felt the telltale prickling of tears. Booth was not the problem.

"Tempe, where are you? Are you at home?"

Wiping away at a tear that had slipped down her cheek, she tried to find her voice. "I'm at the Jeffersonian."

"This late? Does Booth know where you are?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters. And knowing Booth like I do, I'm sure he's got to be pulling his hair out over you just about now. Take it from me; you can't solve problems by running away from them, even if it is the preferred Brennan way. Please don't follow _that_ example." The hammering inside her head increased exponentially. "Temperance, get yourself home this minute-don't make me come get you, or worse, don't make me call Booth. Are we clear on this?"

"Yes."

"And Tempe, be careful driving back; it's dark out there."

"Okay dad" she replied weakly, barely managing to form the words. "I'll talk to you later."

"_You may need to take some time off...Don't make any decisions about your future right now." "I might need more than a little time, Booth."_

The tears finally came, while she was sitting inside her car in the Jeffersonian's underground parking garage, half-hidden in the semidarkness. In great big buckets, as she leaned into the steering wheel with her head down, unraveling more and more with each passing second. Why had he said it?

_You know why._ Deep, deep down, she knew and had known for a long time, even if she'd done everything possible not dwell on it. It wasn't as simple as a bad day, or a bad week or month. Not just the stress of a baby, of an injury, of a standard delivery that went very, very wrong.

_You hurt him and he remembers._ Still, after all this time. In perhaps what was the very best measure of how painful it had been and how awful. No one in her life took better care of her heart or her feelings than Booth-certainly not her own flesh and blood. They fought, they bickered but he rarely lost his patience, not even on those occasions when it may have been well-deserved. Never any recriminations, despite the fact that there were many times when she could have treated him better. And he had never, not once, walked out on her. That he still remembered, that it still mattered when nothing else had left a mark only revealed the depth of the wound. So the tears were partly for her, but mainly for him, for how much her actions inadvertently hurt him all that time ago and how they still managed to reverberate unhappily throughout their present together.

That there were no other discernible choices at the time and no malice involved didn't lessen the gravity of the offense; intentional or not, the damage to the victim was the same. It didn't matter that things had definitely reached a proverbial boiling point for her; the Gravedigger, the nightmares, the chances that Booth wanted her to take. Because in the end she left, without considering enough what she left behind or who.

At first, in those first few days full or jetlag and briefings, she comforted herself with the thought that he would have probably gone to Afghanistan even if she'd stayed. Besides, it was only a training mission; there was minimal danger involved. But then she let herself remember how he looked sitting on that bench, his shoulders bent, refusing to look at her.

"_I've been offered the chance to head the Maluku Island project. I would like to accept." "I thought you already had. You don't need my permission…"_

And she still couldn't see it fully; not even when they met again and he was way too eager to bring up the fact that he'd fallen in love with someone else. How could she have missed it? Wasn't the picture of him in combat gear evidence enough? It was never just a training run. He left to fight, to possibly have to do what he hated the most-taking a life-and maybe to die. The uncomfortable question lingered: would he have gone away to do _that_ but for her decision to leave first? But when he came back he looked happy, said he was happy; it was easy to think that nothing changed, that their partnership was the same, that he was the same.

"_Didn't you stay in touch with anyone while you were gone? Good to know it wasn't just me…"_

Only later, after he saved her life on a rainy night when her thoughts were enmeshed in someone else's head did she start to wonder. Because it hurt; his acknowledgement that their chance had indeed been missed and that he'd moved on. Hurt to an unimaginable degree. Had it been the same for him? The hopelessness and the sense of loss, of invaluable things gone for good that had been accidentally thrown away.

"_I made a mistake. I don't want to have any regrets." "Everybody has regrets."_

"_I missed my chance. I can adjust." "I did."_

"_Yes you did."_

Except he didn't; not really. She finally saw the full extent of the damage as he was drowning another blatant rejection in the contents of an over-full shot glass. "_Something is wrong here..." _The alcohol made the mask slip, revealing the face of the grieving man underneath. She couldn't avoid it anymore because it was staring right at her, confirmed by his very words, unfiltered and unedited for once. That moment wasn't just about Hannah-there was a little bit of everyone in his life who'd ever walked away mixed in, and she was on that list. She couldn't ever imagine being capable of causing him so much pain. Wasn't that the reason she turned him down in the first place, because she could never be what would make him happy? Because she was sure she would end up hurting him? So much for that.

"_Can we still work together?"_

Tonight his words threw a blinding spotlight on the magnitude of her betrayal. She asked him to stay without much regard to how hard that must have been, and he did, with no demands or reservations. Even as she half-heartedly dated someone else in front of him in a clear attempt to put some emotional distance between them. Stayed and held her when she needed it, comforting her, backing her up all the way.

"_I told Caroline to drop my charges too. I'm not going to let you do this alone."_

And after all that it was she who walked out on him, and he still remembered. Who could possibly blame him? And she continued to damage him to this very day, unable to give him even the simple comforts of the home life he dreamed of. Why couldn't Booth believe her that first time? And whatever had possessed her to think she would ever be enough for him?

In the deafening silence of the car there was painful acknowledgement that there were still no answers, just as there were no solutions. Max told her to be careful because the road home would be dark-he had _no_ idea.


	7. Chapter 7

Booth sat alone with their baby, restlessly going back and forth in the glider in the almost darkness of her room, the soft glow of a butterfly nightlight and her warm, bundled form the only things keeping him from falling headfirst into his own version of a black hole. Holding her tight, despite the fact that she'd fallen asleep a while ago and would've gone into her crib without complaint. She smelled so sweet, of baby soap and milk and the special laundry detergent that Bones used to wash all her things. A child conceived against almost impossible odds, who had made his bond with her mother so seemingly unbreakable only this morning. Looking bleakly around the room, he remembered how that too had been both a victory and a small miracle in and of itself; cobbled together in a hurry a few days before the birth and bearing the stamp everywhere you turned of the dreams that he and Bones were finally daring to share. Happiness and family and a wish for those run-of-the-mill, everyday moments others took for granted which they'd both been denied growing up, projected through stuffed toys and books, paint and hard work. And all possibly lost in the blink of an eye.

She wasn't back yet and he was feeling sick to his stomach; it could only get worse. And when she did come back? She would of course, he knew that much. He just wasn't sure that he'd be figuring at all in that equation anymore and his throat tightened once again at the thought.

He couldn't stop berating himself even though he'd been doing it for hours now, ever since she left. How could he bring all that stuff home, taking out his frustrations of the morning on his unsuspecting girlfriend? His partner on every level that mattered-and his best friend. His cheeks were flaming with shame at the thought that he was starting to resemble the one person he'd always tried his damnest not to be anything like. The smell of stale beer and its attendant memories were crushing reminders that maybe nature and nurture weren't that far apart for him. He'd sworn so many times not to be like him, a man who distilled his anger at the world and bottled it up saving it for home, for what was always the path of least resistance. Unlike his dad he made it a point not to curse, he rarely drank in excess and he never laid a hand on anyone he cared about; he wanted to believe that his vices were purely his own and that they didn't affect the people around him. Tonight though, his behavior had been right out of his father's playbook; an ambush of the most cowardly kind that nothing could exculpate. His dad's long shadow had been present in the house with them during their argument and it gutted him to think that Bones was finally getting a good look at the dirty little legacy he'd been trying so hard to keep from her for all these years.

Bones had trusted him. With three deceptively simple words she'd knowingly done away with the last of her defenses, counting on him to keep her heart safe-and he had violated that trust in the cheapest of ways. Wasn't he the same person who just weeks ago was offering up his life to God in exchange for hers when she lay close to bleeding to death during the birth of their child? He couldn't have foreseen this turn of events if he'd been paid out the biggest jackpot in Vegas. Surely that same God was howling with laughter right now at the emptiness of his offer in that hospital chapel. Even assuming she found it in her heart to forgive him, he would never, _never_ be able to forgive himself. _Such a f***-up, Seeley. No one's ever going to put up with you._

Those words were promising to be as true now as they were in the past. Maybe it was high time to admit that there just wasn't enough of him to make anyone happy in the long haul, that small doses of Seeley Joseph Booth was all that any sane woman could be expected to handle at any given time. Everyone else seemed to have figured that one out a while back-why did he keep ignoring the evidence? There was just regret that Bones might end up paying the price for his attempt at one final, disastrous experiment to prove that theory wrong.

Where was she? What was she thinking? Would she even bother giving him the chance to explain once she got back? Of all the dangers they'd faced together, it was the ultimate irony to think that the one thing that might end up breaking them apart didn't come from the outside, but from him. He never should've left the office without making sure as hell that his emotions were under control. The admonishment was too little, too late, he thought with a hefty amount of self-loathing.

When he heard the front door lock turning he breathed a sigh of relief and bent his head down, kissing his sleeping daughter's forehead softly in gratitude. At least Bones was here with him, safe-it was one less thing to worry about. One less of so many. She walked up the stairs and he tensed in anticipation of an angry rebuke, but when a perfunctory look confirmed that he was in the baby's room she turned her head quickly without meeting his eyes and kept going. With his heart thumping erratically in his chest, he heard her go into their bedroom and shut the door firmly and he knew she was avoiding him because she probably couldn't stand the sight of him right now, or possibly ever. With that dull sound he saw his dreams of walks in the park, family dinners and holiday plans laid to waste, the knowledge that he had only himself to blame only serving to make his grief that much sharper. _You screw everything that you touch._

Baby went in the crib but he didn't have the nerve to open the door to their room, choosing instead to go downstairs and sit on the lonely expanse of the living room couch to wait for her. He looked over at the stadium seats, the ones Bones had so unexpectedly salvaged from his apartment as a symbol that she wanted him in her life as more than partner and friend; but instead of seeing in them that perfect autumn day with his dad, all he saw were his own glaring imperfections and the countless events that had made him into who he was. At this very minute, those chairs were stark reminders of all the other days when his life had been less than perfect, all the days that together added up to his becoming damaged goods. But he wasn't assigning blame; the fault tonight landed squarely on his shoulders. If after all these years he still couldn't leave bad memories and less than stellar examples behind, then maybe he just didn't deserve the kind of life that stronger people got to have.

The sound of feet walking softly overhead. She was checking up on their daughter and it left him wanting so badly to go up there to apologize, but the same stab of fear kept slicing through his heart over and over again, and it left him ice cold inside. Maybe the time for listening was over for Bones; maybe all she could manage from this day on forward was walking away because she'd finally had enough of the ups and downs of their relationship-and there had been far too many in too short a span of time. Even the eternal optimist in him would admit to that. The relative safety of the living room for a few more minutes, then. Besides, he didn't want to make her feel cornered because he knew her too well; if she felt even remotely trapped she would fight back, hard. Such a monumental, biblical mess, and there wasn't a single excuse available to him on the face of the planet that she couldn't just mince to shreds with her logic if she wanted to. If he couldn't fix this…

_You are such a f***-up Seeley_… Tonight he'd broken the unwritten rule they lived by that they would never use any of the intimate knowledge they had about each other as ammunition; there was just too much history there and the potential for damage was incalculable. She'd never done it, not since that time they barely knew each other and she made that comment about him having an illegitimate child. That was a lifetime ago and since then she'd always been good to him. Maybe too honest at times, but only out of what she deemed was necessity, and never ever out of spite. And there was so much she could dredge up if she wanted. How he'd paraded Hannah around because he needed to show to himself and to the world that he could do fine without her, how ridiculously jealous and controlling and needy he could be, how stubborn and unyielding. She had always taken the high road, and he in turn had messed up royally.

A long, long time ago his mother had told him in a roundabout way to pick his friends and possible girlfriends carefully because the way they were when you first met them would only be magnified as time went by, especially their bad parts. He was still a kid when she said those words to him, and he hadn't quite understood what she meant by the warning or why she was saying it. Now he knew; his own mother had picked traits unwisely when she fell in love and the resulting mayhem of their family life now stood as a testament to the wisdom of her words. Maybe Bones was taking an accounting of him right now in their bedroom, wondering if all his character flaws were worth putting up with, if his moodiness, his tendency to overreact and his simmering anger issues were fated to get more and more pronounced until they became intolerable. Maybe best to cut and run. Bones wasn't anything like his mother; she was strong, independent. She could, and would leave, if the facts added up to something she didn't approve of.

He kept waiting for what seemed like forever, sitting in their home's heavy silence, praying she'd come into the living room and at the very least yell at him. In so many ways, ignoring him was infinitely worse than an outburst of emotion because an angry lecture might mean she still cared enough to give him some well-deserved hell. He'd seen her cut herself off in the most complete of ways, physically and emotionally, from people who'd hurt her and it was unthinkable that he might be next. But that look on her face right after his tirade... It was a wounded expression that spoke of deep disappointment and betrayal, that said that maybe she was seeing him with new eyes that were suddenly open to all the obvious shortcomings in front of her. On the heels of that, being dismissed from her life didn't seem so far out of the question right now. He had to go in there and get her to talk to him before she over-thought things, even if the conversation was bound to be terrible.

After a few more minutes of beating himself up he decided he couldn't take the uncertainty any longer-the legendary patience he possessed from his sniper days was used up for the night. Except that he was no longer feeling like the hunter but the hunted, expecting at any moment the obliterating shot that was almost inevitably coming his way. He stood up abruptly and walked up the stairs, gently pushing open the door to their bedroom when he came to it. He had to know where he stood, regardless of the outcome. And if after all his apologies she still didn't want to be around him anymore then the least he could do for her was to leave for a while, saving her any more trouble. That, he could manage, even if doing it would kill him.


	8. Chapter 8

The room was dark and quiet, but by the reflected light from the hallway Booth could see that Brennan was lying on her side of the bed, as far as possible from his, her back turned away from the door. At least, he thought with only minimal relief, she wasn't packing. If she was sleeping he wouldn't press the issue; he'd just wait until she woke up to plead his case and beg for mercy. But as he sank down carefully next to her so he wouldn't disturb her he felt the mattress trembling slightly-and he knew right away that she was crying. He inched closer to the middle of the bed. Definitely crying, heaving quietly into the pillow so that no one could hear her. And that's when his heart broke and he completely lost it.

"Bones, Bones" he said in a desperate whisper, his eyes clouding over with guilt as he reached out for her. "I'm so sorry, Bones. Please forgive me-God, I don't know why I even said that to you tonight; you didn't deserve that. I'm so, so sorry." And with that apology came a vivid, unbidden recollection of similar conversations heard many times before, remembered phrases that added to his sense of shame because he was now hearing himself repeating them almost word for word: _"hey, babe, don't cry, don't cry. I'm sorry. It was just a bad day. It won't happen again. I'll be better tomorrow-I swear. I didn't mean it, I swear."_ And another woman's quiet sobs on a different bed, barely audible from a child's room next door.

Booth began to put his arm around her shoulder but she shrugged his hand away and buried her face deeper into the pillow. She was going to fight him, he knew, but he ignored the outright rejection because he had to-he couldn't just leave things the way they were. Using a little more force this time, he pulled her into him as his tears made their way into her hair. He was shaking, shaking with remorse and grief about having done this to her. Only the sucker-punched emptiness he'd felt that first night after Rebecca moved out, when it really hit him that from now on he'd only get to see his son every couple of weeks, came close to this. She was in her rights not to want him anymore, but how in the world was he supposed to go on living without her? After all the things they'd shared, that they were meant to share?

"Bones, please talk to me. I didn't mean to hurt you. Please don't shut me out."

She was tense and unyielding in his arms, but at least she wasn't shoving him away and it gave him cause to hope.

"It's not you Booth" she finally said in hushed tones. She was trying to catch her breath and he wasn't sure he heard her right.

"What? Of course it's me. I was a complete jerk tonight. What I said to you was stupid and unfair, and I'm so sorry."

She shook her head. "Can't you see? It's not you-it's me. I'm the problem here. I can't do this, Booth."

"What do you mean? What can't you do Bones?" he asked, confused.

She turned around to face him, and he could see her tears shimmering in the low light. "This" she cried in frustration. "The family thing, being a mother, housekeeping. It seemed so easy, and now I understand how arrogant I was to even attempt it. I like to think I'm smart, accomplished. I figured that working and having a family with everything that comes with it would be something I could manage. I observed other people doing it; Angela, Russ. How hard could it be? But the fact is that I'm not like any of those people, Booth, am I? The things that come naturally to others, the things that aren't theoretical or abstract are obviously very difficult, maybe impossible, for me. I don't see how I could have ever assumed that I would be successful in this area. I'm clearly unqualified to be in a relationship of any seriousness, or to be an adequate parent. I can't figure this one out and I don't think I ever will, and I also don't know what to do about it. You should have believed me when I said I would hurt you eventually. I did it before, and I'm doing it now."

"What are you talking about, Bones? You've never hurt me. All that stuff from before was pretty much self-inflicted; it wasn't you. And of course you can do this. You're the smartest, the most capable person I know." He was trying to get her to look at him, because he needed her to see how much he believed in her. "Listen to me; _no one, _not a single person is a great parent right from the start. It's a skill that comes to you over time after a lot of practice. It's just that you're exhausted and with all that's been going on-us-and a baby on top of it-it's a big change. You almost died a few weeks ago-you've got to give yourself a break.

She shook her head vehemently and the tears continued. "That's not true Booth; even factoring in my post-partum condition, Angela adjusted much better and a lot faster than I to having a family. And look at you with our daughter. I can never seem to get her to stop crying; all you have to do is pick her up and smile at her and she calms down immediately. Face it-I'm simply missing some essential motherhood component that others seem to have. I can't even get her to bond with me."

"You think _I'm_ the expert?" he asked in an incredulous tone. "You really believe parenting comes naturally to me?" Laying flat on his back he pulled her into his chest, happy that she wasn't resisting anymore. As his hand pressed her head into his shoulder he made the decision to go back into his past, to a time he seldom went to if he could help it, when the inadequacies and frustrations that every new parent feels were compounded by physical distance. Those memories still hurt even after all these years, but he would go meet with the devil himself if he thought there was any chance it would make her feel better.

"Okay Bones, let me tell you a story that I've never told anyone else" he began softly. "After Rebecca and I broke up right after Parker was born, I never got to spend a single night alone with him. Rebecca was breastfeeding, I was still on active duty and besides, even when I was on leave I don't think she trusted that I would take good care of a baby. I don't know; maybe she thought because I was gambling I would do something stupid. But after about a year of me seeing him a couple of hours every other weekend Rebecca asked me to babysit overnight. She was going to an out-of-town wedding with her family and she didn't have anyone to look after Parker. When she asked me if I could do it, I said yes; I was thrilled. I could finally get a night by myself with my son. I had it all planned out, a schedule and everything. It went fine, right up until it was time for bed. I think all of a sudden he realized that his mother wasn't there, and he didn't want anything to do with this guy that he barely knew. He started crying hysterically. It didn't matter what I did or how much I tried entertaining him. My own kid wanted nothing to do with me; I don't think I've ever felt worse-well, maybe not until tonight" he added, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. "You can't imagine how humbling that moment was for me, that I couldn't even offer my crying son any comfort."

She pulled away and looked up at him curiously, slightly more composed now. "What happened? I assume he must have fallen asleep eventually."

"Nope" he said, flinching at the image of Parker's red face. "At this point I didn't know if he was sick; it was so bad that I even thought of taking him to the emergency room. And through the whole thing I was terrified that the neighbors were going to call child services on me, like I was beating my own kid or something. I mean, this went on for hours. So in the middle of the night I bundled him up and took him outside even though it was snowing, thinking if a short walk didn't calm him down I'd just have to go the hospital. And that was the one thing that did the trick. I walked around the block, and I don't know if it was the sound of traffic, the streetlights or the snowflakes or the fact that Parker had to have been exhausted, he finally passed out. But I didn't sleep at all that night. The whole thing left me rattled and feeling like the biggest loser in the world. I never told Rebecca, figuring she'd never let me have him again. And you know what? Even though the next few times were rough too, it did get better over time. And look at Parker now; he doesn't seem emotionally scarred by what happened, does he?" he asked, giving her an affectionate hug."Bones, I've watched you and our baby together-it's one of my favorite pastimes, you know" he added tenderly. "You're her mom, a great mom, and she loves you so much already; I can see it. You're always telling me how good I am at reading people, right? You have to take my word on this."

She watched him quietly and he felt certain that this time he was getting through. "You and our little girl, you'll get there eventually. One day soon it'll happen; you'll be holding her and she'll smile at you and you'll know that everything's going to work out, I promise. Every parent goes through this. It's just that you're used to solving everything right away with that amazing brainpower of yours, and it doesn't work that way with kids. You need to try out a whole lot of things before you know what clicks. And you need lots, I mean _lots_, of patience-with your kid _and_ yourself. I learned that lesson the hard way."

"But the rest of the issues, my work, the book, the house-these things aren't going to be resolved on their own, are they" she asked ruefully. "And I can't give you the kind of things that I know you want Booth. I find that no matter how much I try, I just can't change that much."

"I don't know what it is you think I want, but I can tell you that the only thing I want is you, the way you are, the way you've always been since I met you. Strong, and smart, opinionated, honest. That's who I fell in love with. I'm not out to live some life out of a 50's TV show, Bones, and I've never-would never-ask you to change. And screw the house. You're here with me, we have our baby-I don't care if I have to wear a hazmat suit when I'm here." Maybe it was too soon for humor he thought belatedly, as she looked at him with a slightly malevolent expression. But after deciding that he was joking, a small smile appeared on her face even as she fought off more tears.

"It is perhaps starting to resemble the site of a biological warfare attack, isn't it?" she laughed, wiping her nose. "But my work? I suppose I can tell my publisher and Cam that I need more time off, at least until I can get a handle on things."

He made the decision in a split second; it was the easiest thing he'd ever done. "No. You know, that's not fair. Your work, writing your books-these things are important to you, and because of that they should be just as important to me. They're a part of who you are and I haven't been very helpful in giving you the time you need to do them. If anyone's taking a sabbatical here, it's me. I'm calling in sick tomorrow and I'm dealing with the house and taking care of our kid. I want you to get out and go wherever you want, get some fresh air by yourself-go visit Angela and the squints, work on your book. And next week, I'm asking for some time off so that you can do whatever you need to do. I'm probably going to get suspended anyway-might as well save them the trouble and me the humiliation."

"You don't have to do that Booth."

"Yes I do. I know you're going to tell me that I'm being irrational, but I made God a promise when I thought I would never get to see you again and I'm keeping that promise. I love you, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that you're okay, that we're okay. And maybe" he added hopefully, "if I suck up a lot, you'll be willing to forgive me for what happened tonight."

She regarded him warmly. "I've forgiven you already, Booth. It's unproductive to hold grudges. It's a waste of time to dwell…"

On impulse he kissed her hard, because he was crazy with relief and he didn't need to hear anything more; he was just thanking his lucky stars that they'd apparently survived his bout of temporary insanity. Her body melted contentedly against his and she returned the kiss, before pulling away and looking at him sadly.

"I'm sorry that my departure two years ago still haunts our relationship, Booth. At the time, I didn't feel that I had any other options, but I'm fully aware that I hurt you in the process even though I didn't understand the full extent of it until tonight."

"I swear Bones, I don't think about that anymore. I just brought it up to vent, because I was angry about what happened at work."

"You brought it up though, Booth; Sweets would argue that it remains an unresolved issue between us, one that perhaps we should be discussing in more detail."

"I thought you hated psychology" he said lightly, attempting to skirt the subject.

"In this one instance" she said, pressing on, "I feel that psychology may have something to offer after all. I'm not as fragile as you sometimes think I am; I can handle hearing whatever you have to say."

He closed his eyes, taking his time to come up with an honest response-at this point, she deserved nothing less. "It's not you leaving that's the issue-it's what happened after we both got back that upsets me the most, Bones; I think I'm mainly angry with myself. But please let's save that one for later, yeah? I don't think I want to revisit that right after we made up. We did we make up, didn't we?" he asked hesitantly.

Winding a hand through his hair, she looked at him solemnly and nodded. "I believe we have."

"Really?" He needed to sure about that, absolutely sure, before the night was over. Nodding once again she tipped up her head and kissed him softly and smiled, this time with an expectant glint in her eye. "And although this seems perhaps like the customary time for a round of make-up sex, due to my existing medical restrictions we may have to resort to other measures. But we'll have to hurry with whatever option we settle on, because the baby will be getting up soon."

So very tempting, but he chose to show some rather painful restraint. "No."

"No? Were we not sufficiently angry for make-up sex?"

"No, because I want you to get some rest; this wasn't the most relaxing of evenings for you. I promise, I'll make it up to you tomorrow, and you won't even have to do any of the work" he said with a grin.

"Are we going to be alright, Booth?"

"Yeah Bones" he said without hesitation, settling her back onto his chest. "We are-trust me on this one too." The answer might have seemed automatic, but it wasn't just some platitude meant to appease her; whatever it took, anything, he was going to make _absolutely_ sure that they'd be alright. He held her possessively, staying there until he was certain that she'd fallen asleep. Yeah, he was going to fix this, whatever it took.


	9. Chapter 9

Even half-asleep, she identified the pungent tang of coffee right away, before anything else had an opportunity to sink in. Vague awareness of that bracing early morning smell was followed by a stretch; a long, languid, highly satisfying kind of stretch that was followed in turn by a completely unladylike yawn. It was during the stretch portion of her motions that Brennan became acutely aware of a tightened, uncomfortably full sensation in her breasts. Her eyes finally fluttered open with curiosity and even with the drawn blinds she could tell that it was nowhere near 5:00 am anymore, their daughter's regular waking time. Judging by the slant of the shadows in what she could make out of their room and the intensity of the light that managed to filter through it had to be at least ten in the morning, which a glance at the nightstand clock confirmed-10:38, to be precise.

Her heart started pounding as drowsy thoughts immediately leapt ahead of themselves towards unfortunate, scary conclusions. Why wasn't their child crying? Was something wrong that she hadn't woken up yet? But an involuntary look at Booth's side of the bed showed it to be empty and she plopped her head back on the pillow with a sigh of relief. He had her-of course he had her; why would she think otherwise? The scent of brewing coffee alone should have tipped her off to that most logical of scenarios. She closed her eyes and smiled as her heart rate declined in direct proportion to her diminishing panic. Becoming a parent truly _did_ compromise one's ability to think in a rational, situationally-appropriate manner, she conceded. It was something she was repeatedly warned about but had stubbornly dismissed because she was convinced that she'd be immune from such aberrant behavior. Quite apparently, this was not the case. She supposed she could no longer deny that compartmentalization in this area of her life was impossible, anymore than she could deny that Booth's presence in her life had definitely altered her views on the possibility of becoming part of a traditional familial unit again, last night's events notwithstanding.

Given that there appeared to be no pressing need to rush out of bed she paused for some badly needed introspection, a necessary activity for which there was really not nearly enough time these days. Taking full advantage of whatever pacifying arrangements Booth had made with their child, she asked the question: after all that happened last night, were things alright this morning, with her, with them? Because yesterday life had presented itself in such a bleak and unforgiving light, with the ability to soldier on successfully in the home front and elsewhere in serious doubt-she was certain she had the swollen eyes to show for it this morning.

And today? Better-yes, she thought, after finishing a brutally honest appraisal of her feelings; things were definitely better. A cleansing, much needed talk with her partner and a full night of uninterrupted sleep; amazing how those seemingly trivial things could make such an enormous difference in a person's outlook. As much as she'd initially resisted his advances, she was glad that Booth approached her anyway last night, because _she_ definitely didn't have any energy left to initiate any type of mending of the fences after getting back home. And going to sleep the way she was feeling could not have resulted in anything positive for anyone today.

That particular issue having been satisfactorily dealt with, it was time for a question of a more prosaic nature-what was Booth doing with their child, and why hadn't he woken her up to nurse her? There couldn't be any breast milk left in the fridge; he had to have used it all up last night when she was soul-searching at the lab. Yet, there was no crying to speak of. After one final stretch, she found her robe and peeked in the baby's room-empty. Just as she was set to begin her search of wayward father and daughter, she heard Booth's voice drifting up the stairs and she cocked her head, trying to make out what he was saying. Singing, actually-as far as she could tell, a song about a young white cetacean in a deep blue sea-in a low, muted voice that was as cringe-worthy as it was charming, particularly under the circumstances. Childlike and absurd-she'd witnessed him being all those things on different occasions, but never more so than when he was with their daughter. _Always willing to do anything to make her happy_. And not just their child, she acknowledged with a sudden warmth in her heart as she remembered his apology and his assurances from the night before. Always willing to do anything for the people he loved.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and walked stealthily, determined to catch him unawares, inasmuch as that outcome was possible when dealing with a former Army Ranger. And then something very odd struck her as she crept on towards the kitchen, where she had long surmised his voice was coming from; their house looked clean-was clean-as much as it _could_ be, given the amount of material goods and undesired paperwork it contained. There were still visible piles of papers and gifts, but they were all neatly stacked and out of the way with no trace of wrapping paper or ribbons anywhere. There wasn't a single loose article of clothing in sight and the baby's myriad things were all discreetly piled up against the wall in the back of the living room. Booth's magazines were all gone from the coffee table and in their place there was a wrinkled, stained yellow notepad that she was intimately familiar with. She picked it up, thumbing through the pages. It was the lost chapter to her book, slightly worse for wear and somewhat foul-smelling, but intact nevertheless. He must have searched through the garbage cans and retrieved it in the middle of the night, a task that couldn't have been pleasant for someone who was so notoriously squeamish when it came to decomposing organic matter. This unexpected discovery left her in high spirits and most definitely wanting to see more. When she reached the threshold to the kitchen she heard the soft hum of the dishwasher mingling with water running in the sink and more gravelly singing. Booth was in the process of wiping down the counter while simultaneously looking behind him and making faces at their little girl who sat wide-eyed and squirming in her bouncy seat on the floor. Heedless of her presence, her mate bent down and picked their infant up ever so gently with large, nimble hands and carefully lifted her up in the air as a wet dishrag hung over his shoulder.

"Who's daddy's wittle girl, huh?" he intoned in a childish, sing-song voice. "Who's my princess? We've got to be real quiet," he added in an exaggerated whisper, "'cause your mommy's still sleeping and she's been real tired. Mommy needs a break. Just hold on for a little longer, muffin." He brought her back down and touched their noses together as their child squealed and jerked her limbs excitedly.

The speech raised Brennan's eyebrows and made her bite her lip to keep herself from making an inappropriate comment about the possible developmental impact of talking in such a peculiar manner to an infant. But witnessing this scene also filled her with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction, unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. Their daughter made him so incredibly happy, and she, Temperance Brennan, with all her perceived personal inadequacies, had given that gift to him.

Booth had to be exhausted not to hear her coming. Those highly trained sniper ears invariably picked up her presence in the vicinity regardless of circumstance, even from across a crowded room. A quick calculation confirmed that he couldn't have slept at all last night what between the baby's feedings, the search for her notes and the tidying up of the house; it was a wonder he was still standing. Using the opportunity to examine him without his knowledge or consent, she observed rather quickly that he _was_ irrefutably exhausted and looked it-even from a distance, she could spot the dark circles under his eyes and the slight pallor of his skin. Messy hair that was standing on end in places and a very unshaven visage only rounded out the picture of fatigue. And she also took note, not for the first time in the last few weeks, that he was looking rather thin-the populist term 'scrawny' might apply. His sweats were hanging onto his hips for dear life and his scapulae stuck out rather prominently through the faded t-shirt he wore. This appearance was almost certainly due to a combination of a gunshot injury which had not yet been recovered from and nights up with a colicky baby, mixed in with whatever closely held unpleasantness was going on at work. She could definitely relate; if the choice came down to eating or sleeping, sleep would win out over food every time. But even if he did look a bit of a mess, she concluded somewhat sentimentally that she'd never seen him look more attractive, not even in those dress shirts she was never able to keep her hands from touching or in the tux she bought him that inevitably made every woman's head turn whenever he wore it-including hers. Because the way he looked this morning came about from honest, hard work and a fierce, almost boundless love for her and for their family. And the best, most generous heart she had ever come across, and it made her fall in love with him all over again in that most pedestrian, decidedly unromantic kitchen setting.

He finally felt her presence in the room; his eyes locked with hers and he instantly looked guilty, fearful maybe. His face was such an open book to her these days she thought, still marveling at the fact. At least it had been ever since she'd given herself permission to look beyond what she wanted to see as opposed to what had been broadcasting there all along. It was a wonder she'd managed to misread him so thoroughly for so many years-self-preservation at work, she supposed. She watched as a hand surreptitiously put a baby bottle in the sink, but it was too late-she'd seen it. Even without this piece of evidence, she knew exactly what was going on.

"You don't have to hide the bottle Booth-I found the can of formula in the back of the pantry weeks ago."

"Are you angry?" he asked warily.

Apprehensive; always a little bit that way around her, even after all this time together. Like walking on eggshells, when he no longer needed to be. But that knee-jerk reaction was in large measure her own doing, because her signals were never quite as clear as they should be when it came to him. It was a situation that definitely needed rectifying and one that she felt fairly confident that she could now do something about.

She leaned her head into the doorframe and watched him shift around uncomfortably. "No" she said quietly. "I already ascertained that the ingredients meet all the current recommended nutritional requirement for infants. While I wouldn't want to rely on formula as the primary source of nourishment for a baby, I suppose it's adequate enough for occasional use. Besides, I know why you bought it Booth and I'm…I'm grateful," she added sincerely, getting a little misty-eyed in the process.

"You are?" Booth asked, still unsure about her disposition. "It wasn't to sabotage you, you know that right?"

"You bought it so that I could sleep for longer periods of time and I wouldn't have to get up as often to nurse. I already noticed that some of her feedings were stretching out more than they probably should. It was thoughtful and kind, Booth, and I want you to know that I value the intention behind it. And the house, my notes...thank you..." she said emotionally, hastily cutting short the rest of her speech.

He finally allowed himself to smile and she mirrored his happiness. Their daughter, however, was not at all touched by this tender moment between her parents and the lapse in entertainment coupled with remembered hunger caused a distinctly ugly turn in mood and she began to wail.

"I think she wants you. She loves her mommy, you know" he said with a crooked smile.

"Yes, she does" Brennan replied confidently. She knew that though she might not be winning any parenting awards of the year, she was still her child's mother, loved her unconditionally and she'd be enough-this much was clear to her now. There was also something else she understood; just as easily as Booth had made the choice last night to put their mutual happiness above anything else, above his own physical comfort and possibly even his health, she too was willing to do the same thing for their family and most definitely for him. She was finally certain that she could do it, and she _wanted_ to do it-she just needed to make some preliminary arrangements first. Booth more than anyone else she knew deserved to have at least one of his dreams come true.

"Here, I'll take her." She reached out and the baby came into her arms happily, immediately settling down; what might have seemed like a normal infant's reaction to some was a small miracle to her and she beamed with delight. She looked at Booth as she let the baby suck on her fingers, trying to buy some time. "You don't have to ask for time off next week."

"But…"

"I believe I have things covered. I'm calling Angela this morning and getting the name of her part-time babysitter. I understand she's looking for employment during the day and I think she'll be happy to work for us. I've met her-she seems very nice. I'm also hiring a housekeeping service, at least until I'm able to get a better handle on things."

"But you didn't want people in the house before-I don't want you to be worried about it."

"I've reached the conclusion that a relationship requires a great deal of compromise, not just between the parties, but between oneself and one's expectations". She got closer to him, letting a palm trail over the stubble on his cheek. "You don't have to try so hard to be perfect all the time, Booth" she said softly; "you're fine the way you are. And I'm strong now, remember? I'm not planning on running away from us regardless of how heated our arguments may get, even though I might occasionally need a small amount of time and distance, as I'm sure you will." He watched her closely with shining, appreciative eyes. "Just as I don't have to try so hard to do everything perfectly all by myself. I'm going to apply my efforts towards not being so controlling of my environment; I've found that I can enjoy life a great deal more when I don't. Besides, many well-regarded philosophers would argue that imperfections are an inherent sign of our humanity." She leaned closer and kissed his cheek.

"I'm sorry about what I said to you last night-you know that, right?" he said, profound shame still in evidence.

"Yes."

"It…it made me remember some things I'd rather not-and I never want to be that way, especially not with you."

"Your father again, you mean?"

He nodded. "Booth," she sighed patiently, "I've told you before and I'll reiterate; you are nothing like your father and you could never be; we've discussed this numerous times before. You're much too self-aware and self-disciplined for that." She took his hand. "You're allowed to be upset at me and we're allowed to fight it out, you know, without you having to feel guilty about it every time we argue. We're equals in every respect, professionally and personally, and you can rely on my ability to effectively remind you of that as needed. Now, go shower and shave, and lay down for a while. I must say that I've seen you look better."

He narrowed his eyes at her in mock offense. She wasn't about to tell him he how she was really feeling about his appearance or how affected she was by it because she didn't think she could do it without breaking down into an uncharacteristic blubbering mess. Besides, it might just inflate his male pride a little too much. "I'll make some breakfast for us after I nurse our daughter and I'll come get you."

He turned to leave, and stopped to look at her again. "So, we're good, Bones?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes, Booth we are, just as you assured me last night. And I believe we'll continue to remain that way."

Their child was fed and happy and a stack of pancakes sat steaming on a plate in the dining room when Brennan paused at the door to their bedroom with the words "it's ready" dying on her lips at the sight. Still unbathed and with the damp dishrag pathetically attached to his shoulder, Booth was sprawled out on their bed snoring softly. His arms and legs jutted out in every direction as his body managed to take up almost the whole of their rather vast bed. She smiled at this display of unabashed hedonism by her partner; a man who was so incredibly strong and yet so curiously vulnerable. It was one of the many paradoxes which defined him and which she had long ago given up trying to figure out. Regardless of the reason, it was how he was, and she liked him that way. Leaving Booth to Morpheus' realm, she set off to make her arrangements. Poor, unsuspecting Sweets, she thought with a malicious grin. Their mutual friend had no idea that he was at the top of her list.

"Hi, Doctor Brennan. How are..."

"Sweets, I need to know _exactly_ what happened yesterday during Booth's interview with Douglas Carter."

"Oh geez...oh man...I can't, Dr. Brennan; I promised," he whined.

"In that case, I will just have to call Andrew Hacker for the information, which is not something that is bound to please Booth."

She heard Sweets groan. "I am _so, so_ dead..."


	10. Chapter 10

_*Finally-back on track! Poor Christine didn't even have a name the last time I posted on this story. Hope you remember it!_

_There, it's done_ Brennan decided, carefully smoothing down the front of her dress_. _She fussed with the earrings one last time, making make sure they were dangling properly; meticulously examining every aspect of her appearance, until a final look in the mirror confirmed that everything which was within her power to control had been attended to. The results were fairly encouraging, if she was going to honest.

The fact that Temperance Brennan was happy and full of confidence on this day would have dumbfounded the person whose sad image stared back listlessly at her a few weeks ago. Gone were the exhausted eyes, the limp strands of hair and the frumpy sweats, replaced by a radical shift in perspective, a stylish new haircut that framed her face in loose waves and the little black dress that Booth seemed so taken by when she took him to the Egyptian Exhibit Gala. The dress had two main virtues; it fit nicely despite a some remaining post-pregnancy weight, and it showcased her not inconsiderable upper body assets, maybe now more than ever. There was almost no possibility that Booth would be anything but pleased, and that was in fact one of the main goals of the evening. Assuming things went as planned, she looked forward to reenacting the elaborate seduction scene that she'd been scripting in her head over the last couple of days, down to the systematic unbuttoning of Booth's black shirt.

She noted with pride that even though she and Booth were slightly out of practice in the full-on sex department these days, she never asked Angela for editorial input anymore when she wrote love scenes for her novels; hadn't done it in quite a long time. But just in case those specific literary skills were in danger of becoming rusty, she was going to make sure they'd be getting a work-out tonight.

The doorbell rang just as she was lifting Christine up from the crib to go downstairs and she teetered precariously on her heels racing to get it, with a very energetic child squirming in her arms. So walking in high heels, along with other things, needed practice too.

She opened the door to find Max, looking dangerously out of breath as he placed a hand on the frame to steady himself.

"Hi honey, I'm so sorry I'm late; there was an accident on the way here and I was stuck in a huge traffic jam. It went on for miles-it's probably on the news. I know I'm on a tight leash with you when it comes to keeping promises, and I even left my place extra-early. And I tried calling, I swear, but it just went into voicemail. Here; I'll go look on the phone and prove it to you…wow" he interjected taking a step back.

"Tempe, you look fabulous. Remind me again, were you guys going somewhere special tonight?"

"You can't be late when it comes to Christine, dad" she chided gently. "I was probably in the shower. It doesn't matter," she said with a forgiving smile. Her dad had tried hard to make things right between them since returning to her life, and with the birth of her child, those efforts had been redoubled. She supposed she could try to be a little more lenient with him in return.

"And no; just a quiet evening in" she replied casually.

Max gave her a cagey smile.

"Hmmm…Booth's gonna get lucky tonight, huh? Does he know what's coming?"

"Dad!" she objected warmly, "it's just a nice celebratory dinner-it was Booth's first full week back at work after his suspension. And I'm going back to the Jeffersonian soon, so I won't be having much time to make complicated meals in the near future. And" she added softly, "you're partly right; we haven't had any time by ourselves since Christine was born. I would like to discuss some things with him without constant interruptions and distractions."

"Uh huh, dressed like _that_. You think that dress isn't going to distract him? Yup-just what I thought. You know, if you were still a minor I'd make you go back into your room and change. But I see-I guess that's your story and you're not budging. Well, as an over-protective father who'd rather not picture his daughter making hot moves on any guy, even the one she's living with, I'd say that reason works for me."

His cynical mood dissipated and he looked at her with misty eyes, reaching for her hand. It took him a second to get a hold of his emotions.

"You've done so well, honey" he said in a quivering voice. "I'm so proud of you. Look at you, Tempe-a great guy who loves you, a home, a family…" There were so many things he wanted to tell her; how guilty he still felt about what he and her mother had been forced to do in the course of protecting her life, how afraid he was when he met her again that the harm they had unwittingly caused could never be undone. He remembered the hard, brittle girl from some years back, the one who seemed to have such a difficult time adjusting to changes, the one who couldn't trust she had enough to make anyone happy for long. The one who simply couldn't trust.

Max was on the verge of tears as he took in his beautiful, accomplished daughter and the sweet baby in her arms, surrounded now by all the hallmarks of a fulfilling-and fulfilled-life. All those things he was terrified she wouldn't get to have, the happiness she'd been robbed of...

He stopped himself when he saw her eyes beginning to water too; he wasn't going to ruin her mood or her make-up.

"Hey, where's my other gorgeous girl?" he broke off, waiving his fingers at Christine and giving her a wide smile. Christine gurgled happily, always thrilled to accept any attention that was directed towards her, especially by her doting grandfather.

"We're gonna have a fun time tonight, aren't we, sweetheart? And no more tardies, I swear" he said semi-seriously to her mother, putting up both hands in the air. "You got her car seat?"

He took the baby, readying himself for a quick exit.

"Yes, but I would like to go over some safety precautions again with you before you take her."

"Oh boy…it couldn't be that easy for us, could it sweetpea?" he asked, playfully shaking Christine's hand. "Here we go."

"And dad?"

"Yeees, honey?"

"Thanks...for everything."


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as he opened the front door Booth was stopped in his tracks by the rich smell of homemade pasta sauce. Matter of fact, he had sniffed out an Italian meal right when he first got out of the car; he just didn't dare to presume that the deeply nostalgic scent was coming from his house. Tomatoes, onion, a little garlic, oregano, basil, maybe bay leaf; the typical things. And something else that he hadn't come across in years, a spice he couldn't quite place, from a time so far back in his life that he no longer had easy access to the grainy black and white memories that the anonymous item kept trying to conjure. He was sure that its name, like the memories, would come to him eventually.

Whatever was in the sauce smelled inviting, warm, safe; like home. Like home now, always, and like the home from his childhood, on the days when things had been calm and sunny. He had noticed a reemergence of Bones' culinary skills over the last week and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't excited about this one particular attempt, because she had kind of made a big deal about him not missing it and his taste buds were in the mood for something new.

A home-cooked meal of any complexity was far from an every-day perk around their place since Christine's arrival; if he had to stuff one more empty pizza box or Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese food carton in the trash, he was seriously going to consider returning to therapy with Gordon Gordon just to get something different to eat, even if meant spilling his guts in front of the psychiatrist-turned-chef's whole kitchen staff. He and Bones were both too tired, too busy for any major gymnastics on the stove-or anywhere else, for that matter-and had they actually managed to corral enough energy between the two of them to put together an interesting dinner, would have probably been just as equally tired and busy to appreciate the ensuing results. But any complaints he had about their current dining options were all in good fun; he'd gladly eat cardboard for Bones and their baby every day of his life if he had to without even giving it a second thought.

"_Please, please don't be late today, Booth-I'm making something special and I don't want it to get cold."_

He wondered in hindsight whether there was anything more to this morning's request because she had sounded alternately too matter-of-fact yet adamant about his marching orders, but was coming up with nothing. Whatever it was, he'd find out soon enough.

So far though, everything seemed fine.

So far.

Except maybe for this _one_ little thing that was ever-so-silently eating away at him. A shapeless and insidious fear, like a worm inside an otherwise perfectly good apple, which he didn't have the courage to articulate fully until now. Maybe that fear was circling around and around in his head buzzard-style because, weirdly enough, there hadn't been a single mention of their ugly fight or of his behavior at the time since the night of 'the incident,' as he now mentally referred to it. Nothing-which ultimately should have made him happy, except that there also hadn't been any mention of their upcoming November nuptials either.

And _that, _right there, was the crux of the problem, wasn't it? True, the thing was more than seven months away and they hadn't even managed to agree on a specific date yet; besides, Bones wasn't the kind of woman who was likely to turn all bridezilla on him like other girls he'd heard about, obsessing over and micromanaging every detail of the event until the poor prospective groom was driven to the nearest bar-or off the nearest cliff-in search of relief. But still...

In theory, he _should_ be doing cartwheels over the fact that he wasn't being subjected to the tyranny of a maniacal bride and her never-ending demands for perfection, but he really wasn't feeling all that great about the reprieve. That there was _absolutely_ nothing even remotely wedding-y being thrown around for discussion was frankly beginning to worry the hell out of him. No mention of flowers, or cake, or music, or a dress or even guests; nothing beyond the original choice of the Jeffersonian as a possible wedding/reception locale weeks and weeks ago.

He wanted to bring it up, to make sure she was still on board with the idea of getting married, of marrying _him_, but he also didn't particularly want to. Maybe it was better not to rock their boat again so soon, both of them having barely come out of the last bout of stormy weather in one piece-and together. There had been so much other stuff to deal with, lately. And even though he thought he could see some small changes in her behavior since 'the incident'-a little more secrecy, a little more reserve-where they were at right now didn't seem so bad. Couldn't be; or else she wouldn't be making a fancy dinner for him, would she? Not unless unbeknownst to him he was actually a condemned man being fed one last, favorite meal right before they threw the switch on him. Just in case though, he wouldn't press the issue tonight.

"Bones!" he called out as he closed the door, ritually taking his gun out of its holster when he felt the dull pop of the deadbolt locking into place. He held it in his hand for a minute like he'd done periodically since getting it back, gauging it's comforting, familiar weight, absently letting his thumb run over its smooth metal grooves and projections before finally putting it into the hallway safe.

His gun. Back. Weeks after it had been so unceremoniously taken away. No one, he admonished himself, should be taking this much pleasure in holding something so terrible, but it was a big part of who he was and it had been a hard thing to give up.

When she didn't answer he made his way into the living room, noting with relief that it still remained relatively uncluttered. He was helping out more, the girl who occasionally sat for Christine during the day was helping out more and all of their combined efforts-with a little magic from a cleaning service-were paying off in the only way he cared about-his partner, mate, and best friend looking more rested and relaxed than he'd seen her since they brought their baby home.

The scan of the living room was brief, because his eyes were immediately drawn to the dining room where their table was covered in what seemed like every nice plate and crystal glass they owned, which primarily meant her stuff, because nothing he owned matched. Cloth napkins and a fancy tablecloth, the soft shine of good silverware, and the antique brass candleholders she'd received as a gift from some stiff institution or another. And the most eye-catching detail: a low, handmade ceramic vase, both beautifully understated and refined, just like his Bones, that she'd lovingly brought back from an exotic destination years ago. She used it sparingly, mainly when she felt she had something special to put in it. Tonight, it was filled with loosely bundled red, orange and pink flowers, some cascading dramatically over the sides in an apparent bid to rest their heavy petals on the table.

He wasn't a man of much refinement, but even the philistine in him could appreciate how nice the dining room looked and how much work had probably gone into putting everything together. Which made him curious to the ninth degree.

"Bones!" he called out again, and this time he heard her coming down the stairs, heels clicking softly on the wooden steps.

He stood still as she came closer, letting out an admiring whistle. She looked incredible, wearing that little black dress he hadn't seen in forever, hair carefully brushed and only the barest amount of make-up, just enough to accentuate everything that was already perfect about her face. And the neckline…

"Do you like it?" she asked, twirling around gracefully when she saw his awed expression.

"Yeah, I like it. A lot," he managed to say. "Gosh Bones, you look…amazing. I mean, you _always_ look amazing."

She discounted the compliment with the usual doubtful look, but he ignored it like he always did because as far as he was concerned, he was only telling the truth. She was, and always would be, the standard, no matter what she was wearing-or not.

"It's just now…I haven't seen you looking like this in a long time-all gussied up. It's...wow. What's the occasion?" he asked, suddenly on edge. "Wait a minute-did I forget some important date?"

"No" she whispered with a smile. She sidled up to him and put her arms around his neck.

She smelled nice, like flowers and the old-fashioned castile soap she favored, and he gave himself permission to bury his nose in her hair and inhale deeper, circling her waist with his hands to bring her closer against him. He was all set to go in for an extended version of the usual 'honey I'm home' kiss when she pushed herself away ever so slightly, looking at him suggestively as she ran her hands under his jacket.

"The occasion is that you were fully reinstated on Monday and all pending charges against you have finally been dismissed. Plus, we're getting the night off-our first night alone, together, since Christine was born. I thought you'd be interested to know that I went to the gynecologist today, and she said I was doing very well."

She waited for what she hoped would be an unequivocally positive reaction to that charged non-sequitor, but unfortunately, Booth didn't seem all that willing to go along with her little game.

"Our first night alone together? Why, where's Christine? Did Mary take her out or something?" he asked, quite obviously ignoring everything she had said other than what pertained to their daughter.

Brennan sighed; of course she couldn't expect that he would just gloss over that detail. No matter how much she had prepared for the speech in her head, how much of a nice "spin" she tried putting on the news at Angela's suggestion, it was still unlikely that what was about to follow would go smoothly primarily because Booth was Booth, and not even the possibility of wild, abandoned sex with his girlfriend after months of abstention could deter him from being clinically paranoid about the whereabouts of his loved ones.

"My dad has her for the night."

The statement was brusque and unapologetic; she wasn't in the habit of sugarcoating the truth, and there was no other way of dealing with the subject. He took a full step back, and she readied herself for a bumpy ride when she saw that irrationally stubborn and protective streak of Booth's on the verge of resurfacing, alongside a healthy dash of growing panic. Things could never be that uncomplicated between them, could they?

"What? Max has her? For the whole night? Bones, you should have asked me!"

"He's my dad, Booth; Christine's grandfather. Aren't you always telling me that you want our daughter to spend as much time with her family as possible and that it's a shame between the two of us we hardly have any? You're the one who wanted him to babysit in the first place. Besides, he's been with her before and you've never been uncomfortable with that arrangement."

It wasn't a bad argument, Booth conceded grudgingly, but in the end they were still talking about Max, the same person who had killed a man in cold blood-maybe two, maybe more-and set his lifeless body on fire, gutting him in a last show-stopping, savage act of warning and revenge. Max doing babysitting rounds during the day in their nice, secure home, he could live with; letting him keep their sweet little girl overnight at his place, with who knew what shady associates possibly hanging around-the jury was still out on that one.

"But the whole night Bones?" he whined. "What if something happens? You know how he is-he can be so…"

She looked at him with the cool, unwavering eyes of a judge, biding her time until he could complete the sentence. When he didn't, she did it for him.

"Irresponsible? Attracted to danger? Untrustworthy? Prone to consorting with people of dubious character?" she asked archly.

"That's not fair Bones. I'm just worried, that's all. She's so…defenseless."

He really didn't want to pick a fight; not again, especially after all the effort she'd clearly put into the evening. But he couldn't help how he was feeling; not having his daughter with him unwittingly brought back all that crap from his parenting nightmare days with Rebecca, adding yet one more unpleasant layer to the fact that it was prospective father-in-law/conman extraordinaire Max Keenan keeping their baby overnight. Maybe if it had been Angela and Hodgins...

"It's taken me a long time to accept that my dad was a good father to me and Russ until he was forced to leave us. I'm relying on your own advice to me; I'm choosing to overlook his past mistakes in deference to all the amends he's been trying to make, particularly since Christine was born."

_That's a low blow_, Booth groused silently-craftily using his very own words against him. He knew the battle almost was over; if he kept making a big deal out of Max, it would just make him look like a hypocrite and he'd lose any credibility he had with her in the future when it came to family stuff.

"You should have seen how happy she became when she saw him," Brennan continued softly. "And I gave him everything he could possibly need for the evening, including a detailed list of her schedule and very specific instructions regarding safety and infants. I even made him practice the modified Heimlich maneuver with one of her stuffed animals again, Booth. I assure you that he did quite well."

She could tell that a small part of him was still fighting her, and she was forced to resort to one of the oldest negotiation strategies: begging.

"I worked very hard to make this night special for us" she said, her big, blue eyes focusing unblinkingly on him. "If I can trust my father for one night, can't you? It would mean a great deal to me."

She looked so sincere and so exposed as she gazed up at him imploringly, he finally caved; it was just a big waste of valuable time and effort to keep arguing when he knew he wasn't going to win. And by the way, hadn't she said something about her doctor? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, gripping her upper arms gently.

"One night, Bones-just one. And we pick her up first thing in the morning, alright?"

She smiled. "Now, can you please go upstairs and change? The food is almost ready."

She wasn't going to tell him that Max was taking Christine to the zoo in the morning and that they wouldn't be getting her back until the early afternoon. Distractions, she decided, would be of vital importance as soon as the sun came up.

"Please wear your black shirt. It's on the bed," she commanded on his way up the stairs.

His eyebrows went sky-high when he heard that specific request and in a millisecond his expectations for the evening were raised exponentially, just as his concern over their infant daughter fell slightly-just slightly. He knew she liked seeing him in that black shirt, and that asking him to put it on could only mean serious business for them somewhere down the line.

He bounded up the last few steps, taking two at a time.


	12. Chapter 12

When he came back downstairs-in record time-dressed as she requested and showered and clean-shaven to sweeten the deal, he found the overhead lights throughout the house dimmed down to almost nothing and the dining room bathed in the warm glow of candlelight. The play of shadows and glinting surfaces on the table made the whole thing look surreal, as if it were mysteriously alive.

She was bringing a large plate of pasta to the table and he pulled out a chair for her. The food looked just as good as its smell suggested.

"Bones, this is really great" he said, in between bites of robust mostaciolli.

He was refilling their empty wine glasses when it finally came to him.

"You know, it kind of reminds me of…"

"Your grandmother's dish, the one she made for you whenever you came over after church because she knew you liked it so much?"

"Yeah; how'd you know?"

"Hank," she stated simply. "I called and asked him about your favorite meals when you were growing up. He said you always asked for this one and for his barbecued ribs. Since I can't make the latter because I can't condone the killing of animals even for a special occasion, the former seemed like a good option. I believe I put everything your grandmother put in it, except for the ground beef. Although I think even you might find this gluten substitute acceptable."

He wasn't lying when he said he liked everything on his plate, including the questionable meat; but what he liked the most was the fact that she had gone out of her way to make something that meant so much to him and brought to mind such good memories from a time that didn't have many to offer.

"What's in it? I can't figure it out-it's something that she used to cook with..."

"You're probably referring to the pinches of cumin and turmeric; or maybe to the capers. I confess I was struck by those items in a recipe for pasta sauce, but Hank read me your grandmother's original instructions over the phone, so I trusted that that's what she used. They're unusual ingredients, but I believe they do work-they add depth to the dish, without overwhelming its flavor. She also added a bit of port wine for sweetness. She was very creative, your grandmother. Hank was very kind; he said he's going to give me her original recipe book next time I come to visit; he thought we could make better use of it than he currently can. I hope this comes close to what she made for you. Unfortunately the measurements were rather vague."

"It does; it tastes just like the one I grew up with. It's wonderful, Bones. Remind me again, what are we celebrating? he asked, increasingly confounded by all the hoopla. "I didn't think getting cleared to go back to work was such a big deal; I was only off for a couple of weeks. Unless you're celebrating the fact that I'm finally out of your hair" he said jokingly.

She frowned at the tease. "It _is_ a big deal, Booth" she retorted firmly. "You were falsely accused of committing a very serious infraction and were censured rather severely for it. At the very least, your professional judgment came unfairly into question."

He put down his fork and looked at her.

"I couldn't have gotten out of the mess without you. If it wasn't for the fact that you sicced the whole Jeffersonian staff on the scene after I got suspended, no one would have ever found the gun jammed into one of the apartment building's air ducts, with the kid's fingerprints all over it."

"His friends had a very good reason for hiding it" she answered evasively, deflecting any praise. "It had been used during an armed robbery at a local corner store a few months ago where a clerk was killed. It's fortunate that the gun was stuck between two joints, or his associates might have been able to retrieve it from the duct and dispose of it before it could be found. And I refuse to take credit for your recent absolution because your exoneration really shouldn't have been dependent on the Jeffersonian's lab staff's efforts. I'm sorry to say that your FBI's forensic team did a woefully inadequate job conducting the original search of the premises. Almost anyone could have found the weapon implementing even rudimentary evidence-gathering procedures. I simply helped to bring their incompetence to light. We can happily put together a set of more exacting search parameters for them to follow in the future, if you think that would help."

He laughed a little at her suggestion, but he wasn't going to let her brush the issue away so easily.

"I know about the call you made to Hacker, and the reprimand letter that got put in Carter's file right after that call. You going to also avoid taking credit for fighting my battles for me?" he inquired gently.

She looked down at her plate. So he knew about the phone call, of course.

"Are you mad?" she asked cautiously.

Booth shook his head. "I think I'm pretty much done with being mad Bones, at least for a while-and definitely done with it at home. Too much of that going on lately. And I can't honestly say I feel sorry for Carter; he's had something like that coming to him for a long time-that guy's mowed down a lot of decent agents on his way to what he thinks is the top. Well, whatever happens, I'm pretty sure _I_ won't be having to deal with him in the future-no use for the FBI to tick off their most valuable forensic anthropologist again." He gave her a sidelong look, and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Besides, I think they're moving him to a different field office. After they get a good look at the files he's botched, they'll probably put a lid on his tactics too. I hope they end up shipping him to Alaska-would serve him right to freeze his butt off."

"Alaska has many breathtaking natural landmarks-maybe he would enjoy it there."

"Death Valley then." He took another sip of wine.

"So Sweets snitched, huh?" Booth asked, biting his lip to hide a smirk. He was enjoying watching her squirm.

"Perhaps snitched is not the most accurate term; I don't believe I gave him much of a choice."

She remembered the agitation in Sweets' voice as she strong-armed him into giving her every single detail of what had transpired during Booth's interview. The awkward situation this might end up putting him in with regards to Booth hadn't really been much of a concern because she had bigger things to worry about at the time, but now she was beginning to fear the long-term friction that might result between the two men from her well-intentioned interference.

"I knew something unpleasant had to have happened between you and Carter to make you so angry that night, something that possibly involved me or our relationship given your staunch refusal to discuss it when you got home, and I also knew you would never tell me because I would most likely be upset. Sweets was the next logical source of information since he was present during the interview. Please don't give him a hard time over it," she pleaded.

"Are you kidding? I can't blame Sweets for throwing in the towel-really, I'd be way more afraid of you than me any day of the week if I was him. Just for the record, you can be scary sometimes, you know that? Our baby duck was just being smart. I promise I'll take it easy on him-but I can't promise I won't get some mileage out of it while I can" he finished with an irreverent grin.

"For that same record you seem to be referring to, I was _not_ fighting your battles for you; I know you don't appreciate my intervening on your behalf with anyone for any reason. But in this case, his comments and innuendos affected me personally and professionally, and I felt compelled to defend myself above and beyond what you'd already done. If you were partly vindicated in the process, well, it was simply a byproduct of that process; I know very well that you are more than capable of effectively taking care of yourself."

He reached out and took her hand, seeking to put her at ease. He wasn't angry; he was grateful that she cared enough about him to take on the FBI's garbled bureaucracy for him.

"It's fine, Bones, and I appreciate it, just like I'm appreciating the meal you made for me and just like I'm really appreciating seeing you in that dress. It looks good-I mean, _really_ good-on you. Just like it did when you took me to that Egyptian thingy."

"You remembered? I didn't think you would notice."

"You expected me to forget? Every guy there was drooling over you the whole night-even the half-dead old ones. It's lucky for you that I have a ton of self-restraint."

"Why?"

"Because if I didn't, I might have given them something else to think about. I swear, I would've scared the living daylights out of them too if I didn't think it would have gotten you kicked out of your own party for bringing some crazy-jealous guy as your date."

Laughing, she pushed her plate away. "I recall you looked particularly attractive as well in your tuxedo-I'm quite certain that I'm not the only woman who thought so. And you look very attractive now. I like that black shirt."

"I figured you must, if you ordered me to put it on at gunpoint" he joked.

His mood suddenly shifted.

"This was a lot of work to put into an evening just for me-you sure there isn't anything else going on in your mind? Because you've seemed a little preoccupied lately."

By lately, he meant of course since their argument three weeks ago. As much as he'd agreed to put off going anywhere near that topic tonight, the worm in the apple was just getting too big to ignore. He realized there was a decent chance he was going to regret asking her that, but he didn't want to keep living with the apprehension that was steadily piling on, the doubts that were beginning to sap the joy for him out of anything they did together.

Brennan became introspective as soon as she heard the question.

_He's like a human barometer_, she thought, mystified once again by his uncanny ability to read her even when she was certain she had disguised her feelings well. She had postponed telling him about the decision she had reached on the morning after their fight because she wanted to be sure about this one giant leap of faith. The latest one out of the many that had begun on the day that Mr. Nigel-Murray died. She was saving her declaration for tonight; but things had been so pleasant and easy between them since he got home, that she almost wanted to put to it off. Because before she could feel confident enough to tell him, she knew she was going to put them both through some discomfort. Just one more piece to solve yet another puzzle, and she would be able to move forward once and for all. One final, jagged piece to put everything else into perspective.

She had waited long enough and so had he, she decided.

"It _was_ for you Booth," she declared truthfully. "But I also planned it because I had something important to tell you. But before I do, I would really like you to answer a question for me, something that's been on my mind for a while now. And if you don't want to, I'll understand."

_Oh God_ he thought, as his heart began a free-fall descent straight into the pit of his stomach. It had to be about his damnable, petty behavior from three weeks ago. How had he dared to believe that there wouldn't be any fallout from it?

Putting his napkin on the table, he silently agreed to tell her whatever it was she wanted to know-anything, no matter how painful, even if she might not like what she heard. And he _would_ tell her everything; there was just too much at stake.

He wondered if their wedding plans-to the extent they still existed-would come crashing down as a result.

"Ok-sure. Whatever you want to know, Bones. I'll do my best, I promise" he said, looking at her solemnly.

"It's about you-you and Hannah." She closed her eyes for just a second, before she turned her gaze on him.

"Do you believe that you'd be married to her now if she had said yes when you proposed?"


	13. Chapter 13

_No bricks please, sweet darlings. Just little ol' me's take on season 6 and how the characters-not the viewers-felt about what happened. Deep breaths, everyone..._

"What?" he asked, stopped dead in his tracks.

The question struck a raw nerve, shaking him to the core. The whole time he figured she was going to grill him about his recent outburst and the possibility that all of his baggage could be damaging whatever their chances at a future together were. But Hannah?

That was a long time ago.

Yeah-about as long ago as Maluku, he reminded himself bitterly. _You brought it up first._

"Why does it matter, Bones?" he asked in a burned-out voice, pinching the bridge of his nose in silent, frustrated recognition of the hatchet job he was doing on his promise to be candid. Because just about anything else-his anger, his childhood-he could have dealt with. But _this? _This was the proverbial can of worms, and opening it could bring nothing but trouble.

"That's all in the past-it's over and done with. It's not me anymore. I told you, I _never_ think about her."

It was the God's honest truth.

"Is this because of what I said when I came home that night, or have you been secretly holding it against me all this time that I got involved with someone else when we were away from each other?"

"My question has nothing to do with our argument, Booth, and I was never upset at you for dating Hannah" she stated emphatically. "Neither of us had any obligation to remain romantically available to the other when we put our professional partnership on hold; the only tacit understanding we had when we left was to meet again at some point in the future and possibly to work together again, assuming that the circumstances would allow it. I had made it very clear to you earlier that I believed a romantic relationship between us was impossible, and I never gave you any reason to believe that I would, or could, change my mind. You were entitled to go out with whomever you wanted; it would be unfair of me to hold anything involving Hannah against you."

"So why this, now?"

She shrugged her shoulders. The why she might never be able to answer satisfactorily to anyone, not even to herself; the now would probably become clearer to him later this evening.

"I know it must seem like a strange question, in a way. You asked her; I assume you were prepared for what was to follow if she said yes. But I guess it's not the specific answer that's important to me" she said haltingly. She had acknowledged many times over that the events from two years ago had little relevancy to their current situation, but even so she found that she still harbored a burning desire to know-regardless of how patently irrelevant or irrational the pursuit of this information was.

But what if Booth didn't want to go there? She was keenly aware of how difficult that time had been for him. Sitting with him at the Founding Fathers as the usual happy hour crowd steadily bled out into the early morning, she'd been given the rarest of glimpses into the soul of her obsessively private partner, been allowed for the first time to take a good look at the carnage that all those pent-up losses had collectively wreaked. The road back from that place of utter desolation had been long and hard for him. Was it really fair of her to ask Booth to revisit that chapter of his life simply to put some of her extant fears to rest?

Maybe, if she could get him to understand that the question wasn't just about the satisfaction of idle curiosity; for her, it went to the very essence of why, with all the other possible, more sensible, outcomes floating around in the universe, they had ended up together.

"I told you that you didn't have to provide me with an explanation if you didn't want to; it won't change what I have to tell you" she said truthfully. She was prepared to move forward, even if he couldn't give her what she wanted.

"I simply find that I'm having a hard time with the concept that except for the fact that Hannah turned you down, you'd in all likelihood be married to her right now and what we have-the life we're currently sharing-wouldn't exist. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, to some degree, I'm uncomfortable with the notion that chance seems to have played such a significant role in our relationship; things that we have no control over. If it wasn't for her saying no, or for Vincent dying…"

He reached across the table for her hand. He had mucked up the present by bringing up the past three weeks ago, and now it was time to clear things up.

"I don't know how to answer that in any way that makes me look good, Bones, but I want to tell you the truth and I told you I would, even if it pretty much obliterates whatever good opinion you might have left of me."

"I've never…"

"No, please. Let me try to get through this" he choked out. He ran his fingers restlessly through his hair, struggling to put his thoughts in order. No matter what she had said about his answer not making a difference, he was suddenly confronted with the uneasy possibility that whatever came out of his mouth might affect their future.

Well, if it was all meant to crash and burn, he could at least go out in a blaze of honesty.

He watched as the candlelight wavered gently back and forth on the table, in sharp contrast to the harsh bluntness of the words that were already coming together in his mind.

"When I asked, I was sure I wanted to marry her-I really was. It seemed like the next step for us at the time. But when push comes to shove-no, I don't know that I would have been able to go through with it."

"Why?"

"Because when I asked I was already having doubts-and maybe that's exactly why I did it. After what you told me in the car that one night-about having regrets-I couldn't stop thinking about you; about us, us together. I never really stopped, you know, even when I kept telling myself that I was over you. How could I be, though?" he asked, smiling sadly.

"You were pretty much everything to me for so long, Bones-it couldn't all just go away like that no matter how much I wanted it to. But deep down, I think I already knew that."

"So why did you ask her?"

Why? Because alcohol and bravado had pushed him there, maybe Sweets feeling sorry for him; it's what he told himself on the nightmarish morning after his proposal and the self-pitying drinking binge that had come on its heels as predictably as whiplash after a car wreck.

No; that wasn't right-he couldn't blame anyone or anything but himself for what happened that night.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure" he said, shaking his head. "Guilt, maybe, because I was starting to see that even with all the feelings I thought I had for Hannah, I still loved you. I was grateful to her; I had convinced myself that she could be the one. I thought that would be enough. Hannah was there when things were looking kind of bad for me; I felt really, really alone there for a while" he finished quietly.

Brennan heard the reticence in his voice and she glanced away uncomfortably, having finally understood the true scope of his unhappiness-and the reason behind it.

"And when I came back…she moved to be with me, Bones" he said with emotion. "She changed jobs for me-I thought she wanted more even when she kept telling me she wasn't comfortable making long term plans. I needed her to know that what she did for me, what she had sacrificed, meant something. But here I was, seeing you every day, going right back to where I was before I left, thinking about you even when I was with her-the same feelings all over again. Wondering what if? I wanted all that stuff to stop because she didn't deserve what I was doing. It wasn't right, and in my mind we had pretty much made a commitment to each other, especially after she moved in with me and made an effort to get to know Parker; I couldn't just ignore all that. When I asked her to marry me, I thought it would fix things, that it would finally close that door between you and me for good and that you would see that the pain I put you through that one night wasn't for nothing."

"But you were angry when she turned you down-I thought you were disappointed that she refused your marriage proposal."

"I was kind of feeling sorry for myself, Bones; that's all. I just wanted to be with someone for once without having it all come down on me in the end. But there it was-one more time that things didn't work out. It just hurt. I think the main reason I was angry wasn't that she said no-it was for getting myself into that situation to begin with. Setting myself up all over again when it made no sense; when all the signs were telling me not to, and then dragging everyone down with me. And I hate that I took my frustrations out on you and Hannah."

He looked blindly across the room, as a series of uncensored pictures of himself with his heap of ugly, unmanageable emotions crept slowly across his line of vision. Snapshots of him and Hannah by the reflecting pool; of him and Bones at the bar. And once more he was left with the unshakeable dread of having said things he'd do anything to take back.

"What I did to her that night-she didn't deserve that. She never lied to me about what she wanted-and I was starting to see that I was lying to her. And you didn't deserve to hear the stuff I said to you either-I know you were just trying to help me out. I'm sorry."

"I hurt you, Booth; you had every right to be angry. I told you we couldn't be together, that I could never open my heart to you in the way I thought you wanted or needed, and yet I asked you to continue working with me, to remain by my side day after day as if nothing at all had changed between us. And then, after all that happened at the trial, everything we went through, I left without giving you a reasonable explanation. I wasn't even able to provide you with the assurances that I'd ever be willing to resume our professional partnership."

"I wasn't angry, Bones-just…sad. You don't have to apologize. I pushed you hard that one time, and you weren't ready. And on some level, I understood why you were leaving even if I wasn't happy about it."

He gripped Brennan's hand hard across the table, forcing her to look at him.

"Maybe you and I _are_ a little about chance, Bones, but you know, it doesn't really matter. The only thing that counts is what you do with the chances you get, if you can keep working at it to make sure they don't end up slipping away from you for good. You and I, we did that. We fought hard for everything we have-it wasn't just about luck. And when one of us was ready to give up, the other took up the slack, because we've always been a team. You asked me if I would have gone through with it, with Hannah, if she'd said yes. I don't think so, because I like to believe that at some point I would have taken a good look at what we had and I would have done the right thing, the honorable thing, even if it was harder in the short run. So maybe she did her and me a favor by saying no before we had time to go further down that road and make a bigger mess of things. I'm not making excuses though-it wasn't my finest hour. I wish I had faced the truth about our relationship a lot sooner and gone ahead and done things differently."

She sat in thoughtful silence, allowing his words to wash over her.

"Well?" Booth finally asked with a small, rueful laugh. "Not much to celebrate tonight, huh? Told you my answer wouldn't make me look good."

When she didn't say anything, his hopes fell even further.

"So what's the verdict? Did I answer the wrong or the right way?"

"There was no right or wrong answer Booth; I just wanted to understand."

And in the continuing silence he made up his mind that maybe it was time for everyone's cards to be laid out on the table-even hers.

"Since we're talking about this, I guess I have a question of my own. Why did you change your mind that night about us, when you said you didn't want to have regrets?"

_Why?_

She heard a voice from the beyond the grave, a woman's voice so different from her own and yet so eerily similar, whispering once again to her in flat, clinical tones that held nothing in them by way of spark or hope. Evidence everywhere in the manner of that anonymous passing of a life lived strictly on the surface, an existence that seemed to have had so little impact on the people around her that it was as if she was never even there.

And she saw a car racing blindly through solid sheets of rain, tires squealing full-speed on wet pavement, the bright halo from its bobbing headlights throwing into sharp relief her own emptiness.

And then a man, the only man, who could ever turn her own world upside down, outside-in, emerging out of the shadows to save her life. Always. The epiphany that had been hers that night still took her breath away, even after all this time. She loved Booth-had loved him all along; she wanted to be with him, completely, even with all the untold dangers and losses that such a journey might entail.

"You remember the case we were working on-Lauren Eames, the physician?"

"The one you were so upset about because you thought you were like her?"

"I was obsessed with her Booth; the way she lived, the way she died. We seemed to have so much in common" she said, recalling how off-guard she'd been caught by that finding.

"The more I knew about her, the more I was certain we were the same. She went to extremes to protect herself from emotional pain, and she ended feeling nothing as a result. The unreasonable risks she took were her attempts to make all that numbness go away, and yet she pushed away the one person who could have helped to make life meaningful for her, hurting both him and her in the process by default. He was right when he said she should have given him a chance; she had nothing to lose. They were both scarred by her inability to make any kind of personal commitment, and she eventually lost her life because of it."

"You were never like her Bones; if anything, you felt too much. I know that's why you left after the Gravedigger's trial."

"Maybe not; but there _were_ many uncomfortable similarities between us," she said with conviction. "And studying her life, seeing myself through her eyes allowed me to come to terms with what I'd been doing the whole time you and I were together. I realized that Sweets was right about us. All that time, we _were_ in a surrogate relationship, a relationship in which I risked little and yet reaped almost all of the benefits of being in a romantic partnership. You were always there for me Booth; whatever I needed, whenever I needed it. It wasn't until I was on my own that I was finally able to accept what a huge part of my life you had become, important in ways I wouldn't allow myself to see when we were together, and a part I didn't want to continue living without. As much as I loved my work, it was no longer the most important thing for me. Then we both came back, and I was relieved when I thought things would return to what they had been between us, that everything could go back to the way it was before we left, even with the addition of Hannah. You and I were still working together; we saw each other practically every day-it _seemed_ the same."

"But it wasn't."

She shook her head.

"When I first saw you with her, I was truly happy for you; I really was. You had what you always wanted, and I thought that I did as well. But our connection wasn't the same, Booth, and in the end I realized it wasn't nearly enough. After studying Lauren Eames, absorbing every aspect of her life, I suddenly knew I wanted more, everything that comes with a real relationship, good and bad. We still had our work partnership, but all the other things that bound us together were gone, because you were sharing the other parts of your life with someone else now. I realized how much I missed you Booth, and not just as a colleague, which is what I told myself when we were apart; I...I missed you as a man."

She found herself fighting back tears, unable to say anything else. Admitting all of this to Booth was taking a bigger toll than she had imagined it would, and she was no longer certain that she could get the rest out.

Booth began rubbing his thumb soothingly over her fingers, unconsciously giving her the strength to keep going. Wiping a tear away, she made an effort to focus once again on what she'd been telling him, all the things that he needed-and deserved-to hear.

"I finally came to accept that if I didn't want to end up like her, essentially dead inside, I would have to risk everything, to be willing to get hurt by and be willing to hurt the person that I loved the most. That's why I told you."

"Yeah, and you almost got hit by a car figuring that out. It was way too close, Bones-too close" he said, shuddering at the thought of losing her that way. If he hadn't been following her that night...

"You were watching out for me, Booth, like you always have," she replied with a small tilt of her head.

"But I truly regret putting you in that situation with Hannah-it was never my intention to disrupt your relationship with her. I realized as soon as I got back home that I should _never_ have said anything to you. It was terribly unfair of me to put you in that position; I'm not sure what I was thinking. The only way I can even remotely excuse my behavior that day is by referencing the fact that I was exhausted and that my judgment must have become severely impaired as a result, to the point that I no longer had the ability to comprehend the effect that my words might have on you. I'm so sorry, Booth."

"So are you admitting that for once in your life you were acting on impulse just like the rest of us?" he asked, smiling. "You're allowed to do that every now and then, Bones."

"I'm being serious, Booth."

"I know you are; but I don't want you to ever regret what you said to me in the car-you were just being the brave, honest person that you've always been. Without you making me question things, we might not have gotten to where we are now. And where we're at is good, don't you think?"

She nodded her response.

_"This_ feels right, felt right from the moment it happened. It's how things were meant to be, even with all that other stuff that happened in the middle."

"I see. I was certain that you would eventually go back to your original idea that we were fated to be together" she said, chastising him gently. "I've never forgotten what you said when we first met."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Saw right through me-can't teach an old dog new tricks, I guess."

"I believe we have _both_ learned quite a few new tricks in the time we've known each other. I may never be able to believe in fate, but I'm willing to allow you to believe in it on our behalf" she said, interlacing her fingers with his.

"So," he asked, after hesitating for just a second, "can I hear the announcement you were going to make earlier now, or did all of this talk change your mind?"

"Nothing has changed-I told you it wouldn't. I wanted to talk to you about our wedding plans, Booth-I no longer want to get married in November."

_Stay tuned..._


	14. Chapter 14

_I don't want to get married in November._

There it was, right on cue. He blew it; completely screwed everything up. And even though he figured a while back that this might be coming his way because, really, in all rights it should, he was crushed to bits.

Booth looked away, nodding as the words sank in. No marriage-_but maybe, just maybe, not the end either, _he thought with small resurgence of hope.

Because she was still sitting here with him and-for the time being at least-still wearing his ring. She made him dinner, something special that had obviously taken a lot of time and effort. They spent half the night flirting and laughing; he couldn't believe that the evening, which for the most part had been pretty wonderful up until the mention of Hannah, would finish like this, with Bones breaking up with him. It just didn't make sense. Besides, it would be bordering on the cruel and unusual; Bones might have moments of accidental insensitivity here and there in her quest for what she saw as the truth, but she was never-could never be-purposefully cruel. So there might still be some hope. And as long as she wanted to be with him in some way he could live with that, with anything that didn't put them right back into that state of uncertainty and longing that had been their partnership for so many years. _That_, he couldn't handle.

As long as it wasn't over he would deal, even without a wedding. He could downgrade his expectations a little and focus on the pretty decent life he was already living with her. Besides, why the hell did the legal status of their relationship have to matter so much anyway? Right after they first got together he had made a secret vow never to press her on that front-never to try to corral her like that. He would take whatever she wanted to give and accept it, accept her for who she was and for what she did and didn't believe in, no matter what old-fashioned ideas he had about what relationships should look like. And if it meant sucking it up every time he walked by an old couple wearing their scuffed wedding bands or feeling just the slightest bit hollow when he saw Saturday's leftover flowers in church on Sunday, so be it. Besides, as he had once asked Hodgins, what were they, girls? No, they were-he was-a guy, and as a guy he'd cram that horribly sentimental streak he'd been cursed with into his back pocket, hopefully never to let it see the light of day again. Men don't whine.

"I know-the fight. It was totally my fault; I'm sorry. It's fine, Bones," he said trying for a smile this time. "We can just keep going the way we are, right?"

But what if he had totally misread her tonight and she didn't want to just keep going? He'd been known to get her all wrong before. In just what kind of a place would that leave them?

"I mean, it's okay, Bones. You never really liked the whole idea anyway" he continued with mounting jitters. "Really, I understand about the marriage thing."

She waited quietly for the increasingly incoherent rambling to stop, studying his body language for clues that might help her to decipher Booth's strange reaction. What could possibly make him think that she didn't want to get married? She had said nothing to that effect.

_Oh_, Brennan thought, finally catching the look of badly hidden disappointment that momentarily crossed his face.

_He thinks he understands, but he actually doesn't understand anything at all. Booth..._

She let out a slightly irritated sigh; their odd communication patterns had made for some interesting conversations over the years. Crossed wires, Angela would sometimes say when she heard them talking not so much _at_ each other, but _past_ each other.

She was going to try again. Years of experience had taught her that as long as neither of them wandered too far from the negotiating table, they would eventually figure out how to get their point across.

Eventually.

"No Booth, I quite literally mean that I don't want to get married _in_ the month of November; I have some rather negative views about that month-it was when my parents left. And there was the foster family…" She stopped and looked away; that particular story was still too hard to tell even after all this time.

"The people with the car?"

There was a silent nod, a nod that spoke volumes.

The terrible punishment Bones had suffered over a broken plate still made him furious. Mad enough to have led him to hunt down that vicious foster family in order to give them a piece of his mind-and maybe more. It had been pretty anti-climactic to find out after all those cold calls and late-night searches on the internet that the "parents" were both dead, apparently from an over-indulgence in nasty habits.

No major loss for humanity, though. At least they would never be in a position to harm another kid again.

"Yes. I just…I don't like that month, and besides, the weather is highly unpredictable that time of year. I think I would prefer to get married in May, if you don't object. It's typically pleasant out, and we could do it over the three day Memorial Day weekend."

"So, let me get this straight-you still want to get married-to me?" he asked cautiously.

Brennan smiled. "Yes Booth, I still want to get married-to you."

Relief flooded through him. May; more than a year away, but right now that didn't even register. He didn't care when the thing took place, whether it was in a year or ten, or even ten thousand, as long as the option wasn't completely kaput. For sure he was going to mass with Christine this Sunday-maybe twice for all the weeks he'd missed between the shooting and the baby's birth.

"May is great. That gives us more time to plan, right? What's six months more, huh?"

"I wasn't referring to May of next year, Booth."

"I don't understand; what May are you talking about then, Bones?" he asked, staring at her.

"Wait a minute" he said noticing the wide eyes and the teasing smile. "You're not talking about _this_ May are you? The one that's just a few weeks away?"

It couldn't be; she was way too practical and methodical to want to pull something like that off. That sort of impulsive, fly-by the-seat-of-your-pants stuff was strictly Angela's territory.

But her smile was broader now, and the way she was looking at him-a beguiling mixture of sweetness, innocence and pride-made his heart turn over and over inside his chest. _This_ May. She meant _this_ May. He had to fight the urge to grab her and kiss her senseless right there on the dining room table, regardless of the fine china and the delicate flowers that would inevitably be lost in the process.

"I've already spoken to many of the people I know you would want there, and almost everyone is in town that weekend, or willing to be; Hank, Sweets, most of the lab staff, your friends. Rebecca was going to take Parker with her on a trip, but when I told her how important it was for him to be present, she agreed to let him stay with us that weekend. She was very accommodating."

"You told them all about this? Even Rebecca? Wow-I'm…I don't know what to say," he uttered numbly. At least the mystery of why she had been so secretive the last couple of weeks had finally been solved. And he thought that dinner tonight had taken a lot of effort...

"Not quite" she replied wincing. She wasn't fond of lying, but in this case necessity had dictated that she resort to it; a bride couldn't very well go around telling everyone except the groom that she was getting married in five weeks.

"Perhaps I wasn't entirely forthcoming about what we were doing. I told them that we were hosting a party and we wanted all of our friends to be there in order to thank them for the support they have given us during the difficult past few months. That part, in fact, is true; I _am_ planning on thanking them, after the ceremony. I figured that once I discussed the possibility of a wedding with you and we reached an agreement as to the date, I would tell them the truth. I...I apologize for taking the liberty of assuming that you would say yes" she added haltingly, suddenly uncomfortable. "But if it's too soon for you, we can…"

He almost jumped out of his chair.

"Too soon, are you kidding me?" he said, grinning from ear to ear. "It's great! Whenever you want, Bones-anywhere."

The smile returned.

"Your friend Hank Lutrell, the judge, said he could attend with his family-I thought perhaps he could officiate. There is _one_ problem, though. Unfortunately, Jared won't be able to be present. As you know, he's in India until the end of the summer setting up a business with Padme's relatives. I was forced to tell him about our possible wedding to underscore the need for him be in Washington on that date, but he told me he couldn't change his plans due to some pre-existing arrangements with potential business partners. So if you want to wait until he can get here, I'll be happy to…"

"No" he said emphatically. "No waiting on Jared-hey, that's what video's for, right? We'll send him the pictures."

For just this once Booth was willing to concede that he'd done plenty for his brother already; and he wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away for anything, not even for family. Jared would just have to celebrate with them on their one-year anniversary, and that was that.

_Marriage_. Booth pushed his chair away from the table, taking in the warmly lit room and the beautiful woman sitting beside him-the love of his life. He was still reeling from the news. He didn't think it was ever really going to happen, had almost given up, in fact. Yet here it was, the thing he was sure was almost beyond reach, falling right into his lap. Unbelievable; the whole thing felt like a dream. He squeezed her hand affectionately.

"At the risk of shooting myself in the foot, can I ask what made you want to get married so soon? I mean, don't get me wrong-I'm thrilled-but I'm also kind of confused; it's not like I've been looking like particularly good husband material the last couple of weeks. Not my best, there."

She had surmised that he would get around to asking her, just like he did when she first told him she wanted to get married and he wanted to know why. Booth's desire for complete transparency and equality in their relationship always seemed to outweigh any concerns he had that a thorny question would prompt a change of heart or that the answer might not be a good one. She'd been amazed by his courage in everything for as long as she had known him, but most of all in matters of the heart; fearless, to the last. But then again, apparently so was she. Two fearless, crazy people who had no business being together on the verge of a journey that could very well last a lifetime.

And another leap of faith.

This time it wasn't too difficult to answer his question, having predicted that it was coming.

"I have to make a confession, Booth. After I initially suggested we get married, I began having some doubts."

"Doubts?" he asked, sounding bruised.

"Not about you. I love you; that part was never in question. But I know what marriage means to you, Booth. I know you don't see it as something temporary, something that can be easily dissolved. For you, marriage is meant to last forever. And, as you well know, forever is a very scary word for me. I'm a scientist; I see how things change-nothing is immutable-especially not relationships. Circumstances in my own life have shown me that. Not that it would be impossible to go our separate ways if things happened not to work out, just that you would be very hurt. I couldn't in good conscience make that sort of promise to you if I thought that there was a possibility that I couldn't keep it; I wouldn't want to put you through that. I had to be sure, sure that I could give you what you wanted and what you deserved. But after Christine arrived, it didn't seem that I could get anything right; not with her, or the house, or my job. To add marriage to that equation was beginning to look like an extremely foolhardy undertaking. I was feeling enough pressure as it was and I was afraid that I had reached my breaking point."

"Bones, I never meant for you to feel pressured. If I want to marry you it's because I love you and I want the whole world to know it. But if you're not completely comfortable with the idea of going there, for whatever reason, then we don't have to do it. It's got to be something we both want equally. If it's not, then I don't want it. I'll be with you as long as you let me, with or without a ring, but I never want you to stay in this relationship because you're feeling sorry for me."

"I wasn't doing it out of a sense of obligation or pity Booth; I _wanted_ to marry you, I just wasn't sure that I would be sufficiently strong to hold up my end of the bargain-not after I couldn't seem to get back on my feet after the birth of our child."

"I told you before; I don't know what you think it is I want, but the only thing I want is you, no changes. Never. I'm serious."

"I'm beginning to accept that now" she replied softly.

"So, you still haven't told me. What changed your mind?"

"You."

"Me? What, with my stellar behavior of the last few weeks?" he asked disbelievingly. "You can't mean that."

"I only say things that I mean, Booth. You know me too well to doubt that."

He smiled-yeah, he kind of already knew that about her.

"I was already feeling very insecure before our argument and, after it, I was no longer certain that our affection for each other was enough to overcome our past history or all of the obstacles that seemed to be constantly coming our way. Not enough to overcome all of the things I suddenly felt I was lacking. But then you came back into our room that night."

"Yeah, I came back-I've never been so ashamed of anything in my life" he said with a grimace. "And then I groveled-is that what changed your mind?"

"No. And yes, you groveled" she said with a tilt of the head. "But you also made me see that I was trying to live up to highly unreasonable expectations that had been imposed upon me by no one but myself. When I saw you in the kitchen with Christine that next morning, knowing like I did that you must have stayed up all night for me, taking care of her, cleaning, looking for my notes…" Her eyes grew blurry as she remembered her exhausted partner bent over a sink washing dirty baby bottles.

"It all just made me realize how far you were willing to go to make sure that our relationship would survive. You fought so hard for us Booth, you always have, and in that one moment I somehow knew that I had what it took to do the same for you and for us. You know I don't believe in religious epiphanies, but I guess that morning I experienced my own personal moment of revelation, in every sense of the word. I can't really explain why, and it makes no sense, but suddenly I knew I was good enough, and we were good for each other, no matter what difficulties we might have to confront in the future."

She looked up and saw that his eyes, always so full of affection, were hanging on her every word. She felt more certain than ever that the decision she had reached weeks ago was absolutely the correct one.

"I realize that I may not be anyone's ideal of the perfect wife, Booth, but I do love you, and I'm willing to enter into a union with you with the same level of commitment that I know you will bring to it."

"You'll be the perfect wife, Bones" he said with emotion, running his thumb gently over her cheek as he cupped her delicate features in his large hand, "just not an average one-_never_ average. And who wants average, when you can have extraordinary? That's what you once said about yourself, and it's true. You'll be my extraordinary wife."

_My wife_. It was strange hearing those two words said out loud, and they looked at each other with bemused expressions at the once unimaginable prospect. But the words felt good, and they felt right, as so much between them did even if none of it made sense.

No, no sense at all; and for once in her life Temperance Brennan wasn't going to worry about it.


	15. Chapter 15

_No over thinking this one-short and hopefully sweet-but I think after all that angst, B&B deserve to have a little fun._

Brennan felt she'd been eminently patient, waiting through dessert and that last glass of wine after dinner, but the truism that everyone has their limits was starting to take on a life of its own.

She had to admit, though, that Booth's enthusiasm over their impending nuptials was rather contagious. Besides, it was nice knowing that her efforts weren't being overlooked.

So she was going to let Booth bask in the afterglow of her announcement for a little while longer regardless of how impatient she was feeling, and as they got up from the table together and began picking up dishes and soaking them in the sink, she found herself still planning and plotting with him about the ceremony. On some level, it felt like they were two kids trying to figure out how best to raid a pile of presents under a Christmas tree before the adults were awake; the element of secrecy was exciting.

But she acknowledged that there was something more to their intense conversation than just the thrill of being part of a conspiracy; it was also the bittersweet feeling that this could possibly be one of the last bits of news that was still purely theirs, that no outsider could yet contribute anything to.

So the Jeffersonian rose garden for the ceremony-canopy just in case. Check.

The Egyptian hall and the adjoining rotunda for the reception. Check-with the proviso that the tables and the bar be as far away as possible from the actual mummy cases, please. Ditto for the cake.

Even though she loved every one of those ancient, withered mummies and couldn't understand why anyone would have a problem dining near them, she supposed she could live with that request. So, check on that one.

Invitations, flowers, food. Check-more or less; it was becoming increasingly clear that she would end up shouldering most of the burden of those traditionally-and patently unfair-female tasks. On the positive side, she could always count on Angela to give her a willing hand with the details, so she supposed she could live with that one too.

Another check.

Soon after the possibility of dancing was considered though, Brennan began handling the remnants of their intimate dinner party with something close to urgency; conversing with one's partner was generally considered a good thing by all, but their time alone was not unlimited. Frustratingly, it seemed that no amount of clanking of silverware would be enough for Booth to get the hint. Short of physically assaulting him, she was at a serious loss as to what to do to get his more personal attention.

"How can you even get us the space on such short notice?" he asked, rinsing a bowl rather poorly before putting it into the dishwasher. She turned a blind eye to the debris still clinging to the receptacle; there would be no complaints about his efforts at the sink tonight.

The question, though, was irksome-why couldn't he just stay on topic and deal with the guest list so they could get on with what was certain to be the more stimulating part of their evening? She knew perfectly well that he wasn't going to like the answer.

"I have a certain amount of influence" she replied cagily.

"You mean Hodgins, don't you? Aren't you just the least bit bothered by the fact that you're counting on your personal connections at the lab to get us something that we otherwise probably couldn't get this late in the game? Isn't it a little, oh, I don't know, shameful?"

She gave him her best impression of an evil eye.

"No." The answer was delivered with guilt-free conviction.

"That's what influence is for. Otherwise, it would be of absolutely no value. And I've already checked the Jeffersonian's social event calendar-that date and those locations are currently unbooked. At most, parts of the garden and the Egyptian Hall will have to be closed off to the public for a few hours; it happens all the time when people are holding private functions. And it's not as if Hodgins' intervention will prevent another couple from holding their own scheduled reception there. He would simply be assisting us with getting a permit faster and with less paperwork. Please don't tell me that your overly-developed moral sense is going to have a problem with this arrangement. You seem to feel no scruples when the lady at the deli gives you free donuts merely because she feels a completely irrational attraction to you."

"She does not and-hey! What do you mean, completely irrational?" his wounded ego threw back. "Besides, you're seriously going to equate getting a free donut at the deli with scoring a wedding reception at the Jeffersonian?"

"We're not _scoring_ a reception, whatever that means; we're _paying_ for it. I'm only expediting the process. I spent weeks on this already, Booth" she went on with something close to a whine; "it took most of my waking hours to coordinate all the particulars-and there were _many_; more than I could have ever dreamt would possibly exist. If it makes you feel any better, I even contacted your priest. I can't really participate in a religious ritual that holds no meaning for me, but I asked him to come by before the ceremony and bless our rings for your sake. He can even bless our union afterwards, if you absolutely insist. Please don't tell me that you want me to start all over again. Perhaps _you_ would like to put something of such complexity together on such short notice."

Booth dutifully dunked another plate in hot water, looking uncommonly satisfied with himself. Perhaps, she hoped, he was only having some fun at her expense.

"Nah-I guess not. Just yanking your chain" he replied with a wink. "You know Bones, even if you openly bribed every official in Rome and got us in at St. Peter's I wouldn't complain."

"Well, you can be certain that _that_ won't be occurring. A blessing is as far as I'll go. Final offer."

"I'll take it," he said grinning and leaning over her, a dripping plate still in his hand. He kissed her lightly as warm, soapy water ran down his wrists and splashed on her sandaled feet; she didn't feel the growing puddle between her toes.

What she _was_ feeling as the water continued to dribble all over her was something of a different nature, but just as warm and bubbly.

And _that_ was when her patience finally ran out. Who cared about the cold comforts of the kitchen when the bedroom, warm and inviting, was waiting upstairs?

She lunged forward and kissed him back, and not nearly as chastely as he had just done. The time for talking, she decided, was over.

The unexpected ardor of the kiss shoved him back against the counter and he struggled blindly to put the plate still in his hand down so he could hold on to her properly.

"Hey, what about the dishes" he murmured against insistent, hungry lips, carelessly putting wet hands around her nice evening dress. "I know how much you hate a dirty kitchen in the morning."

The kisses continued to intensify despite his concern for her cleaning standards, becoming longer and deeper with each pass. The sudden silence in the room was broken only by the intermittent sound of heartfelt, distracted moaning. What was he even talking about?

The problems, the tension, the doubts from the past few weeks all seemed to have vanished in the soapy embrace, and they were both left gasping for air.

Booth's question eventually registered and she took a step back, looking up at him with arched brows.

"We're all alone at home tonight, for the first time in months, and you're concerned about the state of the kitchen? Cleaning seems like a terribly inefficient use of our time, given the circumstances" she said, shooting him a pointed look.

"Well…"

"Don't you think our time together could be put to much better use?" She reached for the distracting black shirt and began doing what she had fantasized about doing for the last couple of weeks. One by one the buttons came undone.

"And what other use of our time did you have in mind? Didn't you say something earlier about a doctor's visit?"

"I noted that my obstetrician said that it was perfectly safe for us to have sex now. As long" she added tilting her head, "as you can be slow and gentle."

"I...I can be slow and gentle" She had his rapt, undivided attention now.

"I thought so. That's what I told her."

"Oh God-please tell me you don't discuss everything we do with your doctor, Bones. Nope, don't tell me."

"Whatever information I share with her is only for medical purposes, Booth. Besides, just so you know, I've never given you a bad performance review. The point I'm trying to make is that we are currently under medical orders to…you know...engage in..."

"We are, are we?" he broke in, smiling at her rare loss of eloquence. "Well, then we just _have_ to. Doctor's orders."

"Uh huh" Brennan answered absently, her hands going deliberately up his chest and over his shoulders. She was certain it had to be driving him crazy and she smiled as they went at each other again.

At last, she sighed happily, things were going somewhere non-verbal, and this time there was absolutely no reason to stop; no baby, no medical restrictions, no unresolved issues. Her body grew slack in his arms, and his hands took advantage of her surrender by quietly going to work on the mysteries of the zipper at the back of her dress. She heard a surprised "oh;" he must have finally discovered that there was nothing else underneath the upper portion of that little black-and now utterly damp-dress.

"I can't believe you've been holding out on me all night, Bones" he said, caressing the skin of her back. "Don't you think this information was kind of important?"

"The information was to be distributed on a strictly need to know basis, and you didn't need to know until now. Besides, I didn't want to distract you from our earlier conversation. It might have unduly influenced your answer."

"Well, I can tell you that the conversation would probably have been a lot shorter" he huffed, as the zipper went down a little more. "But the answer, Bones, would have been exactly the same."

The hoarseness in his voice and the warmth of his fingers left her body tingling and her hands reaching for his belt-buckle all on their own. But just as she began pulling on the belt he ground them both to a halt, pushing her away rather roughly and holding her at arm's length while the dress was threatening to go south all the way.

She was confused-why on earth was he stopping?

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked.

Booth's eyes were closed; perhaps she had accidentally hurt him.

"The bedroom-now" he ordered in a barely-controlled voice.

"Why?"

"Because otherwise, I'm not responsible for what happens to the new couch. And because slow and gentle isn't looking good for us at the moment if we keep going on like this. I'm serious" he added with an almost savage look. "Now."

If the way his eyes were burning into hers was any indication, he wasn't joking. She also accepted the fact that foreplay was most likely done for the night-or at least for the moment.

She was more than willing to live with that one too. Check.

"After you, Mrs. Booth" he intoned with a deadpan expression, waiting for the reaction. It came quickly.

Her mouth automatically opened in an expression of horror, and she yanked the top of the dress back into place.

"I am _not_ changing my name Booth; that, that is non-negotiable" she said with an indignant stammer. "It's such a patriar…"

"Gotcha," he grinned, pointing a finger her way. "You're _so_ easy-I hope it's like that upstairs" he finished, waggling his eyebrows at her.

Brennan's impending hissy fit immediately subsided-but the 'easy' part-_that_ she was going to make him pay for.

"You don't have to worry about changing your name; you'll always be Bones to me" he said, looking at her affectionately. "The rest doesn't matter."

He let her go up the stairs first, but she wasn't quite ready to trust his suddenly innocent demeanor. She went past him, fast and skittish.

"Oh, and by the way," he asked taking a swipe at the hem of her dress, "what else _aren't_ you wearing under there?"

She batted his hand away, smiling mysteriously in the process.

"You're supposed to be the investigator in the family, Booth. Go ahead, investigate."

This time, she ran for her life.


End file.
